Random Thoughts

It's Sunday evening and my brain is fried (well, the fact that it's Sunday and the fact that it was over 100 degrees today). So, I can only do Random Thoughts:

• My in-laws promised the monkeys that they would bring their other grandchild to our house today so that the kids could play (without asking me first of course). They decided not to come over so I had monkeys all day asking me when their cousin was going to come over.
• This weekend I ATE. And ATE. I LOVE birthday celebrations but it is SOOO hard for me to stop eating good food.
• Why can't men understand that women like being the center of attention - WHY YES, I WOULD HAVE WANTED A CANDLE IN MY LAVA CAKE AND THE WAITERS SINGING ME HAPPY BIRTHDAY even if you would have hated it!
• I will never again buy a FANCY four cheese blend to make a kids pizza with - apparently it smells like throw up (insert rolling eyes emoticon here).
• My friend is a GREAT mom - after getting stung by a bee in out pool she offered to go outside and swat away another bee. I AM NOT that good of a mom - I would have made the kids leave the pool.
• I am looking forward to Sunday nights on HBO - what a GREAT season of Entourage so far.
• I LOVE Facebook - it allows you never to miss birthdays. Also, getting ~40 Happy Birthday messages on FB rocks - I felt special ALL day/weekend!!
• Friends that are more like family that friends, that you have had for over 20 years, should not be allowed to only congratulate you on Facebook - they also need to CALL!

To one of my BFFs whose Birthday is tomorrow - I love the fact that we are friends and that I can count on you for anything (except if I call and tell you that I saw Jake Gyllenhaal, because then you would hang up on me, you hater ;) ). Have an amazing year!!!

Three Day Weekend

As much as every fiber of my being fights me on putting relaxation over the kids, tonight I let the kids play with the baby sitter and took a two hour nap!! I am trying to stop feeling bad about blowing them off :)

This weekend will be a lot of family time, but I plan on taking some me time too. I have been promising myself I would clean out my closet and chest of drawers for almost a year now. Hopefully this will be the weekend to do so.

I also want to go to the gym and lay around and do nothing.

This blog can be a great way to keep myself accountable :)

So close and so far

I was able to rush home after taking the older monkey to recital rehearsal and make it in time for Latin Jam!

I came home and ate a fairly healthy dinner. Of course, after dinner I ate two dark chocolate Russian candies (sigh).

It's so difficult to be good! No matter what it is we are talking about ;)

Last night I was thinking about cycles, you know, the ebb and flow of things.

As a kid, we play repetitive games - and we play them repetitively. Oddly enough, these games do teach us about life.

Red Rover, Red Rover - that teaches us about being picked for your strengths or weaknesses. About being able to penetrate a seemingly immovable force.

Dodge Ball - that game is too cliche to even mention (yet here I am, mentioning it).

Even jump rope songs tell us about who we love and what life is "sure" to bring us.

Life is one big series of ins and outs, back and forths, teaching us the "same" lesson over and over again. There are times when we are in a good place, and a day later we are in a bad place. Then we are in a good place again, thinking "Wow, I have finally got this under control". And then the next day we are out of it again.

My blog is Sometimes Lucid. Apparently, today is not one of those days ;)

My first post

Deb, from Dirty Socks and Pizza, wanted us to re-print our first blog entries. Even though mine was just a few months ago, it feels like I am opening a time capsule by re-posting.

Here goes:

I was talking to a friend today and I made a coherent, well thought-out comment.... Sometimes I do have moments of lucidity!

We were discussing body images. It's a subject near and dear to most every woman I know. Thin, Fat, Short, Tall, conventionally beautiful, and those whose beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I grew up thinking I was heavy and unattractive. Looking back at my pictures, I was not "skinny", but I was nowhere near fat. I developed early so in turn looked big in regular clothes, especially being 5'2". It took a long time to be comfortable with my body.

It took having kids, working out regularly and knowing I am strong. My kids know I am healthy, and know that part of being healthy is exercising (running around outside, dance, Taekwondo, etc...) and that part is eating well (fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy and yes, even candy). I try to limit the sweets, but we talk about how to be healthy you have to eat good things, and candy isn't that good for you. IT'S NEVER ABOUT SIZE. It's about health. Hopefully, thanks to the lessons I learned growing up, I can save my kids some heart ache. Or maybe not, but I continue to try - especially in LA (the land of "LA 10's").

So, in honor of my moments of lucidity, I posted the above picture. It's not the best picture of me, but this picture is not about how I look (probably the only time I'll say that). I complained most of the way up the mountain, and I huffed and puffed and had to take breaks, but once up at the top I noticed it's beauty. And was happy I was able to reach the top. And felt strong, and knew that I would not feel sore the next day. This was my moment of lucidity, my AHA! moment.

Sure - I still obsess about the way my clothes fit and what the numbers on the scale mean and what my hair is doing and the adult pimples and if I'm a good mom and a good employee. I keep telling myself that these insecurities help push me to do better, and be a better person.

I hope to blog regularly, as I spend a lot of time at night just watching shows I've TIVO'd and surfing the net.

I'll blog about kids, food, crappy TV and random stuff that only I find interesting.

Hopefully, it will be interesting to more than just me.

Reflections

It is February. It has been one month since every one's "new" start! Resolutions are starting to wear off.

I feel like people my age are the MTV generation - you know the one that is used to two minute sound bytes, or videos, to tell the whole story. Change should be instantaneous, right?

I have the same issue. No matter how far I have come, I start thinking that I should have abc, xyz... If what we want takes a long time, we get upset and down on ourselves (or may be it is just me). If we haven't achieved our resolutions already then we tend to drop them. No wonder attendance at the gym goes down between making new years resolutions and realizing "oh shit!" I have a couple of weeks left until bathing suit season...LOL!

I'm trying to teach the monkey's to enjoy the process of growing and learning. I am trying to teach myself the same thing. That the journey is just as important as the destination.

This weekend I FREAKED out that a change in my personal life isn't happening faster. It is not in my control, and maybe that makes it worse. I want what I want, when I want it.

My friend Lupita is re-assessing her dating life. She's been out there for about 1.5 years and is frustrated. I truly understand her but I keeping thinking back on something that a trusted friend told me. She said, "I am truly glad for all the bad dates I had because it brought me to the place in my life where I was able to meet my husband".

This kind of advice is very hard to hear in the moment. Never-the-less, it is good advice.

On that note, I am exhausted and about to crash my head in to the pillow.

Question for everyone - am I starting to get boring and repetitive yet? I can take it.

Random Thoughts again

Here is my latest installment of random, sometime lucid thoughts from my brain.

1. It only took one week for the gym to go from being packed at 9pm to almost being empty at 9pm
2. When your wife reminds you that you were wrong to question her being upset, it is NOT OK to say, "I still think you over-reacted". Thankfully this conversation was over the phone where the only damage I could do was hang up on you.
3. Sometimes I go along feeling weak and then, BAM!, I feel strong enough to withstand anything.
4. I really LOVE the outfits on this weeks episode of Gossip Girl, the part where they are at the theatre.
5. I am finally starting to slow down while reading the 4th Twilight series book, Breaking Dawn, and it is because I DO NOT want the series to end.
6. Watching HD TV on an LCD TV is mind opening - like going from black-and-white to color.
7. This country is making history - I just wish it didn't cost $60+million to welcome in this historic occasion (I am making no judgements, HERE, about whether this is a positive or negative development in our choice of new president).
8. Some times I am REALLY on the ball with pictures, and some times I let my memory card get too full (I promise I will send you the pictures Lee).
9. I smile when I read or watch TV like it is really happening in front of me.
10. I can't think of a number 10 right now but am somehow, inexplicably, drawn to have 10 random thoughts ;)

If you're still with me, thank you :) Feel free to add your own random thoughts to either the comments or to your own blogs. If this gets popular maybe I will turn it in to a meme or a weekly feature.