Random Tuesday - Americans, toques and mindless drivel. In that exact order.

Happy belated Fourth of July you crazy Americans! I love you even though you shun the metric system, and the letter ‘u’ and the tasty goodness that is clamato juice. I hope you all had a blast with your giant trucks, bud light and apple pie. Or grits. What are grits, anyway? I’ve always thought they were some kind of potato concoction, but I’m not exactly sure about that.

Canada Day (our version of Independence Day) is July 1st, so last weekend we went for the obligatory celebrations in the park with over priced concessions, cover-bands and fireworks. I’m REALLY upset I didn’t bring my camera, because some of the people there were awesome. Who knew the Canadian flag made such a good toga?

My daughter is fifteen and desperately trying to find her ‘cool’. I’m usually just fine with this and stand by the motto that as long as she’s not dressed like a whore, she can wear whatever she wants. However, she has recently added a toque to her wardrobe repertoire (that’s a winter hat for all those south of the border). Yes, in JULY. I am usually good at biting my lip when she wears or does something I think is stupid provided it doesn’t cause harm. I shut it when she dyed her hair pumpkin orange. I kept it to my own self when she came home wearing 80’s style flashdance leg warmers. I even managed to let the phase that saw her wearing a skirt and jeans at the SAME TIME go by. However, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut when she left to go to the mall this weekend in a skirt, tank top, flip flops and a wool hat. I knew the minute my ‘why in hell are you wearing a toque in July??’ comment came out of my mouth I had totally screwed myself. That stupid thing has been glued to her head every day since, and I predict will be well into August.

I REALLY need a pedicure.

I think I found an awesome deal for our vacation this year. We are really out of money (the Hubby doesn’t start working until September, so it’s been a little lean around the FoN household recently), but still really want to go somewhere for a holiday this summer. There is this super great used crap website for locals (sort of a Craig’s list type thing) that was advertising a free lakefront cabin about an hour out of town in exchange for someone to stay there and do some landscaping. Perfect!! I love this trade economy that has suddenly sprung up. The people with the cabin can afford to forgo rental income they would make on it, but have no time to deal with the yard work and upkeep. The Hubby has the whole summer off and a ton of free time, but subsequently we have no money to rent a cabin with. Sounds like a perfect match to me! Lakefront even! I have no follow up pithy comment for this, I’m just happy we figured out a way to have a vacation.

Hey – I wonder what kind of service I can offer to get a free pedicure? Surely I must have something to offer. If anyone out there hears of anyone who wants to trade a pedicure for a list of pointless observations and musings give them my email address, okay?

That’s enough from me. Go see Keely, our Captain O’ Captain of pointless observations and musings at the Unmom. She’ll hook you up with lots of drivel. It’s kind of her thing.

Fat Chick vs. Food - Week Twenty Three

So…..this is not going that well. The weight loss thing, that is. Lots of other things are going well, but Fat Chick vs. Food? Not so much.

Keely pointed out to me the other day that not everything can go well all at once. While my first response was of the, ‘No fair!’ variety, she has a good point. Everything requires effort, and most people have a finite amount of effort in them (super mom types aside, but they at least have Percocet). I have a lot of shit I need to pay attention to, and usually one suffers at the hand of the other. It’s a priority thing, I guess.

I can invest my marriage OR weight loss. I can play with my kids OR clean the house. I can go to work OR get all my personal ducks in a row. I have to pick, and there are consequences to each.

I can hang out with my husband who is home every night for the first time in our married life, or I can leave him and the kids and hit the gym. You know how long I’ve been waiting for all of us to be on the same schedule and to be able to do regular things like eat dinner together every night? Fifteen years. No kidding.

I can quit my job and have a beautifully decorated and spotless house, wake up every morning and go for a run, play with the kids whenever I want, etc, or I can earn money and pay for things like shelter and food and clothing. You see where I am going with this.

For the last six months Fat Chick has been a high priority. She has received a lot of attention, and it’s been working! She’s dropped almost 30 pounds! This is quite a bit and has certainly improved my quality of life, my clothing options and fitness level. I’m feeling good. I could be feeling better if I was working on dropping the next 30 pounds, but….the whole priority thing has shifted somewhat.

This is not to say I have given up all together. I’m making concessions here and there. I’ve been taking the stairs quite a bit at work (and I work on the 12th floor, so that’s a lot of stairs), and the other night we all went for a bike ride. Sure, it was to get ice cream, but it was still a bike ride dammit!

I’m going to continue the Fat Chick posts because they keep me honest. I’m also going to start trying to get my family active with me, which shouldn’t be too hard because they love being outside now that summer is finally here. The Hubby and I even tried playing tennis last weekend. I’ve never played tennis before, and not surprisingly I completely suck, but so does he so there is a lot of running after balls going on. I’m hanging in there.

Fat and miserable is a terrible way to live, but I might be okay with fat and happy. For the short-term, anyway. SHORT TERM.