She joined my Girl Scout troop & a few years later, we earned our Silver Award by planning an overnight camping trip for a group of young girls, the ages that we were when we first met.  The night of the camp out, laying under the stars & cool air, I asked her if she had ever walked on air & we laughed until tears ran & our sides hurt.

Then we grabbed pompoms & cheered on opposing teams after practicing toe-touches in my garage & back handsprings in her backyard.

The day we left for college, she stopped by.  We started to different schools, different adventures.  We stayed in touch briefly over instant messenger, but classes & studying & parties distracted until it had been three years since I last saw her.  I missed her, but it would be a few years before Facebook where keeping touch is easy.

On a whim, I added her name to the guest list of my Bachelorette party.  She walked through the door & I held her tight.  The next day, I handed her resume to my boss.  Four years later, we switched places & she wore the white dress.

We worked side-by-side for five years.  I spent more time with her than my own husband; she became my sounding board & best friend, just as we were twenty years ago.

People ask how we will cope without seeing each other every day.  The truth is, I don’t know.

I cannot wait to finally pack away these jeans for good – jeans that I bought on the cheap after Harrison was born, not for flattery but just to have something to wear on the weekends.  I am so ready to be in the “pretty” jeans still folded in my dresser.  The one’s that actually make my ass look good.

I realized this weekend that where I used to judge overweight people…I now feel sympathy.  It dawned on me at a wedding this weekend as I watched a very attractive but very overweight girl go back for seconds at the buffet – seconds of bread & fried cordon blue.  I am ashamed to say that in the past, I would probably roll my eyes but now I understand that more than likely, this girl faces the mirror the same way I do.  More than likely, she knows it is unhealthy but there’s something inside her that cannot stop the impulse.  More than likely, she wishes she could buy bikinis & a smaller dress & envies her smaller friends that make it look so darn easy.

I understand that for some of us, it’s not as “easy” as just saying no to bread.  It’s not as easy as just “deciding” to be pretty & skinny.  That sometimes, even when you do EVERYTHING right & stay within calories, exercise, & drive past Bojangles, the scale still doesn’t move.  & thus starts a vicious cycle.  That sometimes it runs deeper into childhood examples & a self-critique that has run deep since the age of 10.  It runs past just putting on a little too much weight during pregnancy & into food struggles within a family.  (I think we all have issues in our life that may seem “easy” to fix on the outside, but in reality & when we are very honest, those things run deeper than we care to admit.)

You smell what I’m steppin’ in?

So if it’s not easy for you, I understand.  You will not find judgment for me, just a friendly smile & a heart that hopes you one day find the motivation behind getting seconds at the buffet line.

From a lot of talks with my husband this past week, we have decided to tackle my our health as a family.  That although he has a lot of shining qualities, Nate is pretty piss-poor at nutrition decisions & therefore has zero say in dinner anymore.  That when I put out chicken for him to grill & I’m roasting vegetables, I do not need him to suggest pizza.   That if he makes cookies & I leave the room to go crawl in bed to read a book, it’s not that I’m rejecting him – it’s just that I really, really like sweets.  I don’t have a weird relationship that makes me down 24 cookies in one night, but I am better off just saying “no” rather than having one & trying to walk away.  Because while I may not eat the entire package, I will probably eat a few that will add up to a few hundred unnecessary calories.

One “trick” that I have started using this week – my personal favorite, which is writing my current goal weight on the inside of my left wrist as a constant reminder.  I saw this on Biggest Loser (a guilty-pleasure show of mine for years as I am kind of in love with Bob).  Each week, the contestent wrote a new short-term goal weight his arm to serve as motivation. When I get that urge for a mid-afternoon Coke, it serves as a reminder of what I’m working for & how close I am.

So.  Now that I have emotionally vomited ALL OVER YOUR SCREEN, I ask this of you – when you begin to judge someone’s struggle, try to remember something that you battle that may seem so “easy” to another.

How are y’all doing this week?  Any successes you would like to brag about?  Any frustrations you’d like to scream out to the universe?  Have at it, friends.

It all started with throw pillows.  I was entirely satisfied with my house & living room until I noticed that having a toddler has wreaked havoc on my silk throw pillows.  I mean, really, who would have thought that silk linens wouldn’t withstand apple juice & smeared Goldfish?  Products these days, sheesh.  I’m looking at my pillows & realizing that they need some new covers & then I glance around & realize that our bookcases are overflowing & I’m out of storage options.  & I’m all, “NATE, WE HAVE TO MOVE.  1600 square feet is NOT ENOUGH.”

& the moment I say that, I realize how utterly foolish it is.  We’re a family of three & one of us is only 32 inches tall.  We should be able to comfortably fit in half that size.

Our life?  It’s overflowing.  & not in the emotional vomit that is all puppies-&-rainbows.  I’m talking about STUFF.  Books we don’t read.  Clothes we don’t wear.  Glasses we don’t drink out of & toys that are somehow already missing pieces & parts.  So I grabbed some cardboard boxes & immediately went to work.

I packed up three boxes worth of books & drove them to the used book store for a store credit exchange.   I took a clock that hasn’t worked in 3 years off the wall & put it in a Goodwill box.  I stood on a chair & sifted through all of our drinking glasses & mugs.  Cookware.  Bakeware.  That clunky collinder that gets in the way?  GONE.  The three coats from college that are still hanging in the coat closet?  Church donation.   By the end of my rampage, not only did I have at least four boxes of stuff, but I also discovered that I have a garlic press!  Will wonders never cease?

& then I rolled up my sleeves & tackled the loft area.  I cleaned out my desk, organized Harrison’s toys.  Donation, trash, keep.  I did the same in Harrison’s room & then turned the madness to the Master Bedroom, where we ended up with five bags of clothes for the clothes closet.

I should be humiliated that I could give away five tall garbage bags of clothes & STILL have a full closet.  I guess I’m not properly chagrined yet because I know there is more to weed out.  (like that size 8 black dress that I will probably definitely more than likely never fit into again)

I can’t remember where I heard this gem, but I remember flipping through a blog & reading…

the key to organization is editing.

Hello, truth.  Nice to meet you in this dark alley.  Please don’t beat me up.

& thus is my goal for 2011.  To simplify.  Edit.  & by default, organize.

I’ve done my initial “sweep” of the house for the glaringly obvious, but my plan is to take the house room by room, editing & cleaning until the house feels more in order.

Granted, this still doesn’t solve the problem of needing new pillow covers.

]]> http://theheirtoblair.com/2011/01/18/my-living-room-pillows-almost-made-me-put-the-house-back-on-the-market-again/feed/ 69 http://theheirtoblair.com/2011/01/02/that-being-said/ http://theheirtoblair.com/2011/01/02/that-being-said/#comments Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:29:56 +0000 heirtoblair http://theheirtoblair.com/?p=5037 I’m going to pick myself up, not dwell on yesterday, make a cup of tea, & tackle this rainy day by cleaning the house & making a grocery list.

over & out.

I was just TIRED.  After 10 months of weight loss, I was tired.  & I think I’ve earned that right.

So I ditched it all.  & realized that I was much happier just taking a break for a bit.  Not obsessing over everything that I put in my mouth & the impact it might have on the scale come Monday morning.  I started chugging water like I was pregnant again – easily 100 oz per day.  (I’m thinking about putting my name on a star & taping it to the far right stall in the office bathroom.) I ate Captain Crunch for breakfast with a cup of coffee that held creamer.  I made a grocery list for meals I will actually cook (woot! that means more on Best Bites!).  I pulled out the 30 Day Shred again & walked over 3 miles on Saturday for the RMH of Durham.  I took Nate lunch one day, & even had a cheeseburger myself.

& I didn’t gain.  I even lost a few ounces.  But more important?  I felt worry-free all week.  Food was nothing to me.  It didn’t cross my mind, except when I was hungry.  I ate what I wanted, didn’t eat if I wasn’t hungry.  I didn’t count calories, I didn’t say “no” if I wanted something.  & I found that I was so much more at peace.  Take that lunch I took to Nate – I swung through CookOut for him & snagged a CookOut tray with a regular burger, fries, & hushpuppies.  In the past, I would have said, “eh, if I’m going to eff it up, I might as well go big or go home, right?”  So then I’d order my own CookOut tray.  This time, I wasn’t screwing up any diet.  There was no mentality of screwing myself over.  So I ordered a small cheeseburger & shared some of Nate’s fries.  & probably saved myself 1,000 calories, all because I didn’t feel guilty about what I was eating.

Maybe that means I have an unhealthy relationship with food.  But it’s the one I’ve got & it’s the mindset I have to work with.  I’m coming to grips with that.

& this week, I’m learning that the guilt I carried around about weight & McFatty Monday was far more unhealthy than my BMI.  Worrying about what the scale would say.  Worrying that I was “blowing” my chances at weight loss by eating a bagel at a baby shower.  Feeling guilty over a glass of wine at the end of the day.  This week, I shrugged all of that off & I feel better, both inside & out.

What do you do with the “guilt” that comes with losing weight?  How do you handle it?  Or are you a super special snowflake that never feels any guilt towards food & weight?

This week, I am participating in another walk for charity on Saturday, plus working hard to control portions on the foods that I make.

With that being said, what do you eat for lunch?  What does a typical day look like?  (don’t be embaressed if it’s Wendy’s & McDonalds.  Seriously.)  Just don’t say Lean Cuisine, please.

Dear Harrison,

Three-fourths two thirds of a year have flown by & I can barely believe it.  They say that time speeds up as you grow older & believe me, IT DOES.  One moment, you’re sixteen & in the car with your best friends on the way to Bojangles & the leaves are falling & the sun is shining & you’re thinking, it doesn’t get better than this, & the next thing you know, a decade later you’re writing a letter to your very own baby about how he stood on his own for the first time yesterday.

Harrison…YOU STOOD ON YOUR OWN.  Pulled up holding onto my fingers, which is your favorite game & instead of sitting back down with a chuckle, YOU LET GO.  As if to say, “Momma, I got this.”  You let go for two seconds.  Stood on wobbly legs.  & then fell on your butt with a grin.

Ch-ch-ch-changes, they are a-coming.

But Harry, those changes are good.  & I’m so excited for you when I think of all the things you are learning & accomplishing these days.  Your daddy often marvels that every single day is different & therefore, he doesn’t want to miss one beat.  You’re feeding yourself crackers & puffs, pulling up on everything, & it seems that every day you have a new consonant that you talk back to us with.  “Ya ya ya” you said this morning, a precursor to all the eye-rolls & “yeah, yeah, yeah, WHATEV MOM” ‘s that are in our future.

Harrison, I’ve thought a lot about change today – changes in you, changes in me, changes in our life.  There are a ton going on right now but for the first time, I feel like they are all good, positive changes in our life.  & although they are a result of things going haywire in the past, these changes feel so good for our family.  I want you to always know & be strong enough to recognize when change needs to happen, & be brave enough to embrace it.  Own up to it.  & then celebrate in it.  Whether it’s standing on your own, getting back to your basics as a person, or watching a tomato turn red in your garden as summer unfolds.  Embrace change.

For you are changing, growing, & turning into a little person that I am so proud to call “mine.”  I hope that you will one day be proud to call me yours.

& no matter what changes, my love for you will never end.

love,
Momma

Harrison, 8 months.

Y’all, this is “Kit.”   & I love her.  She writes Blogging Dangerously, one of the most hilarious, irreverent, no-gloves blogs I have ever read in my life.  She likes to write about sex, but she’s writing on a more serious note today.  But if you’d like to read about her college flings, married sex, & the Marine that was “hung like a gerbil,” then RUN to her blog & add it to your Google Reader.

She’s also sweet as sugar, but don’t tell anyone because it might ruin her reputation.

(& if you don’t follow her on Twitter, SHAME ON YOU.  She’s hysterical.)

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Sometimes I’m not sure if my readers are more shocked by the WAY I talk about sex on my blog – or by the fact that I actually HAVE sex and 4 young children under 7.  The resounding comment on my blog is, “I will try to remember these things in case my husband/wife and I EVER have sex again!”

And you know what? I get it.  For a few years there it felt like the only time my husband and I had sex was when we were actively trying to get pregnant.  And after the second or third night of “trying” we were ready to wait a month until the next window.

Sometimes the most intimate we were was just leaving the other one alone in the bedroom to make magic alone and then get some much needed sleep.  We weren’t going for movie-style intimacy, we were just trying to hang onto some semblance of our sexuality.

After my 4^th daughter was born it got much more difficult.  First of all we had 3 young children who were keeping us hopping during the day and a newborn who was keeping us awake all night.  Then, YEARS of breastfeeding had taken their toll on my estrogen level and I was just NOT IN THE MOOD.  And when I WAS in the mood my body wouldn’t cooperate so it hurt – pain is definitely NOT an aphrodisiac!

I talked to my doctor and she gave me an estrogen based lubricant that worked wonders.  First of all it helped during sex but then the estrogen was absorbed and helped me get to the point that I no longer needed it.  If you think that you have a physical issue (pain, or anything that’s not like it used to be) please ask your doctor.

Once we’d resolved that issue we ran straight into another issue – timing.  I’m a night person.  I have a lot of things to do during the day and I can’t relax completely until they’re done and everything is put away and things are in their proper place and my face is washed and my teeth are brushed, etc.

My husband is more laid back but when he’s tired he’s TIRED.  Bedtime for him is LIGHTSOUT, no talking, keep your hands to yourself time.  So you can see what I mean about timing issues.  Day after day he would walk into my home office and get shot down.  Night after night I would roll toward him only to have him roll away.

And it was okay, our marriage was strong enough.  But after a while I realized that it didn’t HAVE to be.  We didn’t have to have a lackluster sex life because we had a strong marriage.  Sure, on the weeks where we all came down with a stomach bug it was good to know that sex could take a back burner but during the weeks when things were going well it was equally good to know that I was married to a man who could curl my toes – TWICE.

We started trying to be more flexible.  I realized that if I was in the mood during the day we could squeeze some time together into 15 minutes – certainly less time than I was allowed for lunch – and easily shorter than a nap.  We started going to bed earlier.

And the more sex we managed to have, the more we thought about sex, and the more sex we ended up having.  There were weeks when we had sex 5 times – and they were followed by weeks where we didn’t have sex at all.  And then there were weeks after weeks after weeks when we had sex twice.  There was really no pressure to keep score but the point was that we were in the habit of having sex instead of the habit of NOT having sex.  And while our marriage may have been strong enough to withstand NOT having sex, it was nice that it didn’t HAVE TO.  There was no pressure to have newlywed sex but it was nice to be enjoying my body with a man who could curl my toes  - TWICE.

I was STUMPED to as to what to get for Nate for Father’s Day.  Then after talking to my Jockey girls (::fist pump::), we decided it would be awesome to stock up some lucky folks with new shirts for their man.  Because there is nothing more gross than old undershirts with yellow pit stains.  Anyway, we got talking & ideas rolled & creativity was flowing & there may have been mentions of how they read the word “vagina” five times in my post that day, & we came up with a LOVELY giveaway just in time for Father’s Day:

Kick Back With a Six Pack

Catchy, right?  I can’t take credit for it.  Here’s the deal – there will be SIX WINNERS! woot!  Six of you will win a coupon + free shipping for a set of classic six-pack set of shirts for the man in your life for Father’s Day, compliments of Jockey.  They even have talls, which is what Nate will be getting to replace his grungy T-shirts from college that he wears under his polos.  (plus something else, but that is super-hush-secret until Father’s Day just in case he stumbles upon this).

To win:

“LIKE”  Jockey on Facebook.  Then come back & tell me you did it & why your man/father/brother needs new shirts.  That’s it!  I’ll draw the winners with random.org on Sunday, so you can order & have them by Father’s Day!

Good luck!

0

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legal landing

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Trunk show!   With a giveaway!  Oh, wait.  That’s right.  People don’t like those anymore, huh?

So if you hate giveaways, back out slowly.  If you want to win free stuff, keep reading.

Jen from Thirty-One brands is allowing me to host a trunk show!  I went to a Thirty-One trunk show back when I was first pregnant with Harrison (that feels like forever ago now!) & loved their gear.  It’s so delicious & girly & Southern & monogrammed.  Everything an be monogrammed, which of cours emakes the Southern in my need smelling salts.  WE TAKE OUR INITIALS VERY SERIOUSLY DOWN HERE, Y’ALL.

I am a HUGE fan of the thermal totes – I can pretty much see myself using this for lunch, bottles, or taking beer to the beach.

Easy-peasy:  Check out the site by clicking either the link above or “Thirty-One” to the right of this post & tell me if you prefer a) no monogram b) initials or c) your name.

& I’ll let random.org pick someone to win $50 store credit!  (drawn on May 5th)

p.s.  leave me your legit email in your comment so I can contact the winner that way

p.p.s.  the trunk show will stay open until May 9th!

Obviously, I must have some redeeming qualities other than musical taste, considering that he did marry me.

There are “those” that will say you should introduce your child to classical music early to cultivate a young genius. (Who “those” people are, I’m not entirely sure. But they’re out there, trust me.)  They want you to hook your fetus up to a set of Bose headphones, pumping Mozart & Bach into your placenta.  Personally, the idea of stretching headphones over my INCREDIBLY MASSIVE, heavy, moving eight-months pregnant belly sounded as appealing to me as taking a 24-hour long spin class at the gym.  Especially knowing that any beat would send the lad inside into a full on ute-rave, potentially causing permanent damage to my lower ribs & bladder.  So instead, I turned up my favorite flavor of girly-pop for nine months & immersed myself in vats of Ben & Jerry ice cream.

So it shouldn’t be a shocker that Harrison emerged with a rather unsophisticated lean towards Top 40 music.  I first noticed it in the car when he would settle to me belting out Jessica Simpson ballad’s over his screams.  & then when Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” debuted, Nate & I knew we were in trouble.  It was the one tune that could always calm Harrison.  He could be red-faced, hollering at the world & all we had to do was push play.  Miley’s voice would fan out across the room & Harrison would turn into a gyrating, smiling baby.  ”Party in the USA” is now the third most played song on our iTunes playlist.  & then the world was graced with Ke$ha.  Oh, Ke$ha & your “Blah Blah Blah.”  & oh, how Harrison loves you even though you burn even MY ears by the fifth replay on the morning commute.

But we’ve accepted this slowly, as we love our son & are willing to sacrifice our souls & ears for his happiness.  & last night before bed, Nate said, “There’s a new Ke$ha song out – we should download it for Harrison, don’t you think?”