How To Lose Those Last Four Pounds, Crazy Yoga, and Other Stories

You know when you're doing something, and while you're doing it you're thinking "If anyone saw me right now they would think I was a complete idiot"? I had one of these moments this week.

As mentioned a few posts back, this has not been a great week for me. Rotten, in fact. I happen to be one of those lucky people who suffer from anxiety. Not often enough to be medicated, just often enough that every so often (like when someone proposes to me, or my husband goes missing in the mountains, or other various kinds of problems arise) I have an anxiety attack.

I have various ways of containing and handling these episodes to keep them somewhat under control, but every so often things get a little out of hand. Knowing this, (and dreading the fact) I found and bought this "stress relieving herbal tea" that claimed to calm anxiety. It's been sitting in my cupboard for almost a year, waiting for an out of control bout of anxiety worthy of a little product testing. The last two times my husband went MIA while solo-ing it in the mountains, I had the tea brewing when he finally either called or arrived. What a bummer. Twenty minutes later, and I'd have been able to find out if the stuff actually worked.

This week I had my chance.

By Friday I was a mess. The anxiety had been building up since Tuesday night, and somewhere around lunchtime, I felt it coming on. Full blown anxiety attack. Heart starts racing, panicky feeling takes over, what's left of my functioning, rational brain begins shutdown.

Then I remember - I have that stupid tea in my cupboard. It could work. I'd better try it.

I open the cupboard, grab the tea, put on some water, and while it boils I notice this on the tea box: "Yoga To Let It All Go." I read on, and discover there is a yoga pose that's supposed to calm anxiety. I am not really into yoga. I am, however, feeling desperate. I decide that at this point I will try anything.

So I go into the other room, kick enough stuff out of my way to clear a spot on the floor (anxiety SERIOUSLY impairs my ability to do anything productive around the house - we're talking no-laundry-for-four-days kind of serious), and sit cross legged on the floor. With one eye on the instructions, I get into position. Left hand, palm up on my left knee - middle finger crossed behind first, thumb over fingers four and five. (Not joking, I really did this). Right hand, first finger extended - thumb over fingers three, four, and five. Hold right hand at chin level. Close eyes, and twirl finger in the air for one to three minutes. Breathe deeply. Feel like a complete idiot, and hope no one comes to the door, because it has a window and I'm sitting on the floor right in front of it feeling like a crazy lady.

It totally worked.

I actually stopped shaking, and was breathing normally after a minute or two. Seriously, it was so effective I was kind of bugged, because it messed with my product testing. If I'm already calming down, how the heck can I judge how effective the tea actually is???

But I drank it anyway, and it did seem to help. Or, I was just experiencing the full affects of my amazing yoga experience. Who can tell? Now I'll have to wait for my next major anxiety attack (no rush there, Mr. Anxiety) so I can drink the tea BEFORE doing crazy yoga poses.

But don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. I'm just hoping I don't have any public anxiety attacks, so I can keep my idiotic yoga pose all to myself. (Can't you just picture me dropping into the Praying Mantis in the grocery store, twirling my little finger on aisle Nine? What a picture). And there was a silver lining to all of this - thanks to my anxiety-induced starvation diet, I lost 4 pounds!!!

See - just when you think life really stinks, you take a chance, do something that makes you feel like an idiot, achieve minor success, and lose those four pounds standing between you and your skinny jeans. Last week's anxiety - this week's accomplishment.

Just call me Pollyanna.

And the New Limerick Champ of the Planet We Call Earth Is...

Can I just say that we have some amazing limerickers out there?! This was a really hard one to judge because so many were so good. First we have our reigning champ Sue, from The Quack Shack, who turned out two fine limerick specimens. They are both worth a looksy, and qualified as contenders:

When doing laundry, I've cried,
"Oh, help! Your tips, please confide!"
Whites don't go with peach
Stay away from the bleach
Lest everything comes out tie-dyed!

I hang out my clothes on the line
The sun dries them crispy, but fine
I'll save a few dimes
But spend so much time
Hunting socks that aren't even mine.

Love the tie-dyed line! So original. The two that gave me the biggest laugh were from new contenders. This first one is from Lisa over at Away From It All, and here it is:

My house is one big laundry pile.
Well, there's two, but they each stretch a mile.
There's "dirty" and "clean"
(and some in between)
You'd never know underneath there is tile!

What a great visual! And the other funny girl new to our contest is Alison Wonderland. This one has one of my favorite openers:

My daughter just puked on her sheet.
The baby, his diapers they leak.
Which leaves me in a quandary,
I refuse to do laundry,
But my house it is starting to reek.

Can I just say that I've been here??? These were both so fabulous, that I had to take a poll here at home to make my decision. As soon as I'd decide on one, I'd change my mind and be back to the other one. Finally, however, after several people weighed in, I managed to make my decision. And the winner is...

Lisa, from Away From It All!!!!! GOOOOO Lisa! I sure hope there was somebody there to catch her when she fell, because in her picture she looks tall. I'd hate to be responsible for injury over in Poland - I don't know if their medical facilities are up to snuff. (She'll have to let us know in her next post).

To the rest of you limerick writers, thanks for making me smile! I can't wait for an excuse to have another one!!

The Day Laundry Made Me Smile

I just want to announce the discovery of a surprising new therapy.

Limericks on laundry (as amazing as it may sound) written by blogger buddies you may not even know, make a person suffering from emotional stress and fatigue feel remarkably better. The suffering individual may even smile, chuckle, or (if the limerick has both perfect meter, and witty rhyming) induce actual laughter.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And please don't stop now - you have until tomorrow (Sunday) night to compose your entries. Just think how many unhappy, stressed out people you may unwittingly help by your submissions! Who knows what kind of emotional basket cases may read my blog (after all, they say like attracts like, and I am DEFINITELY feeling rather baskety this week!)

So thank you again, you really have brightened my weekend!

Due To Circumstances Beyond Our Control, We're Forced To Take The Easy Post-Writing Way Out: yes, it's another contest, with yet another (lame) prize.

I have to apologize for my posting delinquency. Usually by now I would have something (whether it was worth reading or not) to offer those of you who bless me with your visits. (Those of you who leave me your comments are a class above the mere blessers - you are Blog-Angels). But frankly, this has not been a fabulous week, and I am not feeling very witty.

Actually, I'm feeling extremely witty about one topic - but unfortunately, I've decided it wouldn't really be the best thing for me to blog about. This topic is the one regarding the not-so-fabulous-week I've been having, and I'd really enjoy nothing better than telling all of you out there in bloggy land just what a complete idiot I can be. Unfortunately, however, there are other people involved in my latest escapade,who might not appreciate it if I strung the whole thing out for everyone's entertainment.

But it's also the only thing I can think about, making post-writing about other things extremely challenging.

So instead, let's just have a nice little limerick contest, shall we???

Topic: Laundry. This is in honor of the dirty laundry I don't dare hang on the blog to dry. So get your limerick-y brains ready, and remember the rules:

1. It has to have something to do with laundry.

2. It has to have five lines.

3. Lines 1,2,5 need to rhyme.

4. Lines 3,4 need to rhyme.

5. The meter is very simple, just check out the limericks on my sidebar - or keep reading, because I'm about to throw a couple of my own out there just to get you all warmed up!!!

Laundry is really a pain.
It's enough to drive you insane.
It never will cease,
And the piles just increase
Till you just want to leave on a train.

That was admittedly horrible. Undaunted, however, I will try again.

Oh where is a match for this sock?
I think that my socks all must walk.
I bought ninety-three,
Now where can they be?
If only my washer could talk!

Not much better, but let's not forget that I'm having a bad week. Apparently this impairs one's "limericking" ability. I better try to redeem myself one last time:

While laundry can be such a chore,
A regular, bummer and bore,
There's those who just smile
And hum all the while,
And when it's all done they want more.

This last is based on true events. If you don't believe me click here. And leave her a comment, because anyone who feels this way about laundry deserves a LOT of Blog-Angel love!!!

And now, I will turn it over to all of you hopeful limerick winners! Leave your entries in the comments, and I'll give you until Sunday night. Number of entries is unlimited, and the (lame)prize is still an honored place on my sidebar, and the title of "World's Best Limerick Writer Ever". Such an honor! But just breathe deep, and try not to let your nerves get you!!

Another Post In Which I Complain About My House - and come off sounding totally negative and bitter, which I'm really not. Well, not usually anyway.

Now days, almost every house is built with at least two and a half bathrooms. There's the powder room - for company. The hall bathroom - for the kids. And the giant, massive, so-big-it-needs-its-own-zip code master bathroom including both garden/jet tub AND stand-alone shower. As with every other luxury that has become standard, I believe most people in this country have ceased to appreciate the multi-bathroomed house. With this post I will attempt to bring back some small smidgen of respect and reverence for this incredible advancement of our society.

I was raised in a half-way house. By half-way, I'm referring to the fact that we were half-way to the whole standard bathroom thing. Rather than the two and a half business, we had the full downstairs/company bathroom, and a full upstairs bath (with both shower AND tub). To make up for the lack of an actual "master bath", the upstairs bathroom was attached to my parent's room. Hence, it was technically their bathroom.

But all three of us girls used it every single morning.

Who wanted to go ALL THE WAY downstairs (where it was usually a full twenty degrees colder, I swear) when there was a nice bathroom so conveniently placed? So I was raised with the whole crowded mirror business, and the peeing in front of everyone thing. (Dad was pretty good at hitting the bathroom either before or after we took it over. Poor, poor man. That will teach him to design a house with no master bath!)

Then there was college. Six girls, one tub/shower/toilet, and the standard forty foot vanity with three sinks and fifteen electrical outlets. Each of which must have had their own breaker box, considering the amount of juice they sucked on Sunday mornings. Was anyone else ever amazed that no fuses ever blew, or was it just me?

With marriage came a much more friendly person/bathroom ratio. Being indecent no longer mattered, and sharing was even a little bit nice. Truth to tell, sharing a bathroom with all girls really isn't that bad anyway.

But now I have boys. AND ONE LITTLE BATHROOM!

I'm really not sure why, but sharing with a husband and three small boys is so much worse than any of the other bathroom-sharing I've done. Maybe it's because my children always have to go number two while I'm in the tub. (Those of you familiar with my frequent and very long/hot baths are sure to understand how irritating this phenomena actually is). No one ever knocks on the bathroom door - which doesn't lock. Every Sunday morning, my husband manages to get in the shower precisely when I begin trying to either fix my hair or do my makeup. Ever try to use a mirror while someone's showering???

When you only have one bathroom, the clothes people shed, and the dirt that comes with them (three little boys and a husband who works construction) are a CONSTANT problem. And have I mentioned the pee? There's a reason why my children aren't allowed to pee standing up until they can prove their accuracy. With that much male-peeing traffic on one toilet, cleaning the commode can be an hourly job.

That is, if you want the ONLY company bathroom in the house to be presentable should someone stop by and need to use it - or walk by it, since it's DOWNSTAIRS, and right in the middle of the front room.

There is absolutely no hiding my bathroom from anyone. Please tell me that someone, somewhere, is beginning to fall for this pathetic (and overly obvious) plea for sympathy.

When I say that the bathroom is located downstairs, I want to make perfectly clear that the bedrooms (all TWO of them) are not. They (the bedrooms) are very much upstairs affairs. This is not fun when you're pregnant. Or when you have a child who constantly wakes up and has to pee in the middle of the night but doesn't want to have to go downstairs alone. Or when someone comes to you in the small hours of the morning to tell you they're about to throw-up. At times like this, the bathroom may as well be at the neighbor's.

And so I go on day after day, dreaming of that blessed, long looked for event, when we move from this house to one with multiple bathrooms. And please do not try to tell me that it will just be a big pain because there will be more bathroom cleaning to do. This will not work on me. I have suffered too long with bathroom sharing, and would be THRILLED to have the boys clean their toilet while I clean mine.

So go now, Dear Reader, and resume your happy, multi-bathroomed lives, in your happy, multi-bathroomed houses - with your guests using your lovely little powder rooms, and the ability to tell your children to take their BM's someplace else whilst you luxuriate in your master-jetted-garden-tub.

And maybe, just maybe, you will appreciate the sheer luxury of the master bath just a little bit more after reading this post. Occasionally thinking of me and offering a silent prayer that I will someday be released from the purgatory that is one-bathroom-and-six-people-four-of-them-males would also be a nice idea. You know, proving to the Universe at large just how much you care about people you don't really know.

I would really, REALLY appreciate this kind of thoughtfulness. Fasting is also an option. You know, for those Sunday's when you forget to eat breakfast, and then get to church and realize it's Fast Sunday but don't really have anything specific to fast for? Yeah, just think of me. You can call it the "Jen's bathroom fast". And all the while you'll know that I'm here, in my one-bathroomed house, just trying to take my shower and put my makeup on in peace and solitude.

And that it probably isn't happening.

Just Me Dreaming of a Hologram Machine Again...

I want a hologram machine. Or room, or however it is they work. I'm not really into Star Trek, but nine years ago when my oldest was a baby, I would occasionally watch some Star Trek show my sister was into while I was at her house. About the only thing I took away from it was the hologram thing.

For those of you who don't know how it works, holograms are the coolest thing ever. The people on the ship would go to a hologram room, and program it to be whatever they wanted. They could practice fighting, go to some weird planet, basically create any environment they wanted. Including people, places, and events from the past. Nothing was real of course, it was all just some kind of crazy, completely tangible and real illusion.

I think all the time about how cool it would be to have my own hologram thingy.

Not because I want to simulate fights, or visit weird places - I want to be able to visit the past. Just think of how fabulous it would be:

I could relive the night my husband and I kissed for the first time. Heck, I could relive any moment I wanted from that amazing summer!

I could relive late night moments snuggling with my babies. Without the tiredness, because it wouldn't really be in the middle of the night.

At the drop of a hat (well, manipulation of some crazy-wild-amazing-computer-thing) I could relive Conan's first day of preschool.

Just think of being able to go back and talk to your toddlers with their cute little voices and ways of talking. Things the mind lets go of, regardless of how desperately you try to hold on.

I could just hug. My children, my grandparents - anyone I wanted to see, hear and feel again.

I could go back and spend an afternoon feeding the cows with my sisters in our hideous '70's style ski pants purchased for the chore at thrift stores. Maybe we'd even get the truck stuck - just for fun.

The list is endless, really. And it would be the most perfect thing. You wouldn't really be IN the past, so you wouldn't have to worry about messing things up. But yet, so many untouchable memories could be brought back to life. My kids aren't even out of elementary school, and already I miss kissing their chubby little cheeks, and pulling their little snuggly baby bodies onto my lap for a cuddle.

Ever try to cuddle with a nine year old? Mine's willing, and we do our best, but he has so many bones! And his arms and legs are way to long if you ask me.

Holograms are also better than stopping time. I mean really, I miss loving and kissing my babies, but I don't think it's worth committing myself to a lifetime of diaper changing just to keep them little. Besides, watching them grow is one of the greatest parts.

I just get kind of desperate when I realize they're all getting so big. What if I can't remember everything? Like how they smelled as babies? Or how it felt to pick their warm little bodies up out of the crib?

So now you all know. I'm just a big, sentimental weirdo, who dreams about the possibilities of holograms in the real world every time I kiss my babies goodnight. But you have to admit - it's a pretty cool idea.

What Goes Around...

So, about two weeks ago, I was talking to Annie on the phone about her blog. She wanted to update the look of it, but was tired and didn't feel like it at the moment. I, on the other hand, was very bored. So I told her I'd go in and set up a new fake blog, and put some cool template on it. That way I'd do all the work, and all she'd have to do was click on and see if she liked it.

Did I mention I was bored?

When I get bored, I have a lurking obnoxious side that likes to come out and play. Very few people know this - aside from my sisters, who've born the brunt of it for most of my life, and my new victims, my poor children.

I cannot tell you how many times I ended up feeding the cows, or stacking wood alone because of this little problem. Whether it was singing REALLY obnoxiously, or talking in some bizarre foreign accent and insisting I really wasn't Jenny, but Swanhilda Bulregard, I just couldn't help myself. As I've gotten older, the maturity level of my methods haven't improved much.

Getting back to Annie and her blog... I found a template I thought she'd like, and went in and started messing with the colors. The only problem was that with nothing on the new blog, I couldn't tell how things would look... So I decided to get a little more creative and set up a side bar and write a little post. Just for the visual.

Then the obnoxiousness began to take over.

I imported her "About Me" bio for the sidebar, but it just didn't fit with my mission. So I went into her dashboard and wrote a new one. It was really obnoxious. It started off something like "Hi, my name is Annie and I'm so lame." It was all about how lame she and her old blog template were, and about how her incredibly cool sister (me) was going to fix it for her.

In my defense - I totally forgot that if I made a new bio for the new blog, even if the new blog was private people would still see the bio when they viewed her profile.

And likewise, after she saw the lovely template I had created (which she didn't use) and we deleted the fake blog, it never dawned on either of us that when people viewed her profile they would still be reading the "lame-o Annie" bio I had lovingly created.

Oops.

So about a WEEK later (can we just say how many people must have viewed that stupid bio in a week??? Tons of new people check out her blog constantly) she calls me. This is our conversation:

Annie: Yeah. I just decided to look at my profile.

Me: (legitimately clueless and innocent) Yeah, so?

A: You are so dead.

Me: Why? What are you talking about?

A: Um, my BIO!! You, now "Hi, I'm Annie and I am so incredibly lame"??? That bio.

Me: (struggling with the hilarity of the whole thing, but trying REALLY HARD not to let it show) WHAT!! You mean it's actually on your profile??!! (snort, choke, and other trying-not-to-laugh-noises).

A: Oh yeah. Do you know how many people probably saw that? You will pay. I will get even.

At this point, I tried to proclaim my innocence, but I was laughing so hard I don't think the sincerity was really coming through. And let's just say that my laughter didn't do much to improve her mood. I knew I was in for it, I just didn't know when it would strike.

Ten minutes later I decided to get on my blog. There on the side bar was this huge write up that started something like this:

"Hi, my name is Jen, and I think I am sooo cool. I'm so cool that one time my pants even froze to my legs."

Nice.

I was so worried someone might see this filthy libel, that I (kind of regretfully, because it was pretty darn funny) didn't even read the whole thing before I deleted it. Then I called her back and we laughed it off.

About four or five days ago I looked at my profile. Yep, there it was - "Hi, my name is Jen, and I think I am soooo cool." The whole thing, complete with the pants-freezing comment. It must have been up there for at least a week. Probably like four people saw it. I so had it coming, that I couldn't even bring myself to get mad - and this time I had the pleasure of reading the whole thing. And let me tell you, it was a gem. WAAAYYY longer than the one I wrote about her, by the way.

So just in case anyone actually saw that bio, I'm really not quite that cool. (Hope this doesn't disappoint anyone who read it and got excited that they knew someone cool enough to actually freeze their pants).

And Annie's not quite as lame as I made her sound either.