LULZ 69th POST GUYZ

The title is me fighting this whole aging thing here. Next month is my super-awesome special birthday. You know, the one where you turn the age that's the same as the date? Which would be great if my birthday wasn't March 27th. I'm going to be freaking 27. It sounds dangerously close to 30. Think about that for a minute. I mean I barely feel like I can call myself a "20-something" anymore. It's like I'm moving into this new grouping, the "nearly 30 set" or something. My one friend is declaring herself 21 again this year. I wouldn't mind just being 26 again at this point.

I'm seeing the nearly-30 problems begin, namely the slowing metabolism and inability to go through live on astoundingly small amounts of sleep. Everyone says to my school full-time + work full-time + parenting in the amount of time left that I'm "young and can handle it". Sure, I can handle 3 hours of sleep at best all effing week long. Right. I'm not young now. I'm "nearly 30". Well I will be in a month and a half. A night of some fun and drinking has me thinking about the pointless calories I just ingested and severely lacking in energy the entire next day instead of just into the early afternoon, and I didn't even drink that much. (Yes on very rare occasions I do get out a bit.) I may or may not have walked into McDonald's, declared to the fine people in attendance with me that I did not want any of the lovely food but two juice boxes sounded just delightful. And that may not have been in those exact words. But those two juice boxes were delicious.

Taking Delight in the Little Things

Today I was showering and noticed something different but I couldn't figure out what was making this shower any different from yesterday's. Then it occurred to me, yesterday afternoon I put up a new curtain after my friend broke my blinds and I threw a blanket over the bathroom window temporarily (a month or two because I suck, also it wasn't like some Looney Toons thing or anything like that). This new curtain only covers the bottom half of my window because the top has privacy blurry stuff on it. Why only the top has privacy stuff on the glass is beyond me. I just live here. But for the first time in awhile there was a more substantial amount of natural light coming through the window, making the water seem clearer. There isn't much natural light because we're in the middle of a days long snow storm that seems like it will never end and makes it appear as though the roads never get plowed rather than the rare plowing that they get. I don't know the last time I saw any road out my window and I live on a fairly busy road in this "city". Visibility has not been good at any point in time in the last couple of days. My car, however, is clear because I'm at the right end of the row and it's super windy. It's amusing to look at the line out my (now curtained) bathroom window, the other end has plenty of snow and each car a bit less of the evil stuff as you go down the line.

Anyways, for some reason sunlight (or barely there natural light) and running water have always just given me this all around good feeling. I absolutely love showers on a sunny day with light coming through the window. Oddly enough as I was thinking about this Mini-Geek was heard asking me why I was having a "good shower". He does strange things like that far too often, interrupting my thoughts with things that following them uncomfortable close.

Step Four: Buckle Down

I am a horrible time-waster. And it seems the more stressed out and busy that I get the more I tend to want to waste time. This past semester is a great example of that. Towards the end I got frustrated. I did not want to study or even do the reading, or pay attention in class. I knew I wouldn't learn the material magically but I began to lose my motivation. I do feel though that getting more of my home into order has the potential to help me get more of my mind in order, thereby making the semester slightly easier to deal with. The more that I have physically organized the more mental clarity I am finding. Unfortunately classes start the week after next.

Quick side note, who the hell drives off without clearing ANY of their car off?! I just looked out the window to see this car with a back window, and the entire passenger side full of snow, as in can't see a speck of clear space, leaving my parking lot.

Back to buckling down. The fact that school will be starting up again soon does not leave me very much time at all to finish this mission. Although the first week or two I won't have that much crap to do. Next weekend I am having Mini-Geek's birthday party since my family will be back from Hawaii (may they have a snowstorm for their return, similar to the one that we're having now) by then.

I need to learn that I do not need to my google reader a zillion times a day and read every single thing on there. The world will not end if I do not see every lolcat posted on icanhascheezburger. XKCD is not a necessary start to any Monday, Wednesday, or Friday morning. I do not need to at least skim through every article that Wired posts. I do, however, need to stay on top of woots. They sometimes sell out.

Step Three: Eat Better

My diet sometimes contains some crap, especially during the school year. I am constantly grabbing this and that out of the vending machine or a slice of pizza on the way to class. I try to make it better things out of the machine, I don't eat chips, they're awful things. I look for granola bars and whatnot. This needs to end. Or rather not continue once the semester starts back up.

I've considered going vegetarian again, but I am not sure yet. I really don't eat much meat and I rarely, if ever, eat red meat.

I eat too much bread, I already know that.

Since break started I've been eating a bit better. I'd like to do even more of our shopping at the little local place, assuring that I buy less frozen food and more fruits and vegetables. I go there some but I'd like to go back to doing most of my shopping there again.

As for the exercise, I think that I broke one of my toes earlier. I apparently developed this problem earlier where I could not walk around without slamming my toes into something. I whacked all 4 smaller toes on my left foot into the Wii Fit board earlier. The second from my left is rather bruised and they hurt like hell still. Super way to start a new year.

Perhaps We Need to Work on Patience

Today won't be another "resolution" or whatever, instead I have an update and a story where I become "that mom".

After the story that I am about to tell you I went through the storage unit downstairs. I ended up donating a literal car full of stuff to the Salvation Army. I mean the trunk, back seat, and front passenger seat were piled up with bags and boxes of things we no longer need or want. I was more than happy to clear some things out of here. Now onto the story.

Yesterday was Mini-Geek's check-up. He was dreading the doctor's and yelled at the idea of going but I figured all would be good, or at least close to it when we got there. I even came prepared with a change of pants and underwear (for him, not me), a granola bar, some fruit leather, a few smnall toys, a drink, and a book. Ha, was I ever wrong!

As soon as we pull into the neighborhood his doctor's is in he begins to argue with me and yell that he does not want to go to the doctor's. I tell him too bad. He gets out of the car, needing a minor amount of assistance because he's fighting it a bit and then begins to actually struggle, I was seriously that mother. The one dragging a screaming and fighting child. I had to pick him up and carry him through the door. He screamed and cried and yelled while we waited, fortunately he was in the morning's first bunch of patients. Never in my life have I been so freaking thankful for an 8:45 appointment. They called his name and I felt so relieved.

I again had to carry him through the door and into the exam room, where he continued to scream. The nurse was a very sweet and nice woman however she told me that if he does not calm down enough to weigh and measure him we would have to reschedule, as though he'll be so much better next time. I explained to him that if he did not calm down this will take far longer and we may have to come back another day and that she wanted to see how big he's getting and if he's getting bigger than my brother. He agreed and then went nearly catatonic, not talking, staring straight ahead with these blank eyes. Whatever, he was quiet. The nurse did her thing and asked him to strip down. Again the screaming began.

While we waited we read If You Give a Moose a Muffin three times, he wanted to listen so he'd stop every once in awhile and then begin the screaming yet again. I offered him toys, he ate the fruit leather, screaming between bites, he drank his milk, screaming between sips. He was quiet for a bit when we played with a Cars magnetic set my step mom had given him for Christmas.

When we got out the to the car I was telling him how disappointed I was in and blah, blah, blah (which is pretty much how it sounded to him I'm sure) and asked him why he didn't like the doctor's so much.

"Because it takes too long"

Step Two: Exercise

This past semester I gained some serious weight. Not just a couple of whiny pounds. Not like 30 pounds, but more than I'd like. I started off doing so well but a lot happened and the exercising didn't very often. One of my good friends thinks that a lot of it was stress. I was probably more stressed than I've ever been these past few months.

Again, this semester I'll have a bit more time so hopefully I can make some changes here with a bit more ease.

The last couple of weeks I've been on the Wii Fit pretty regularly and adding in my yoga DVD nearly every day, sometimes managing both the morning and night sections, and my evil exercise ball DVD with the woman who says awful peppy work out like things in that irritating voice.

I don't get why I don't do yoga more. I feel amazing after I am done, physically and mentally. Being all stretchy is super-fun. And this woman doesn't mess around when it comes to the morning one, she makes sure that you sweat by the time that it's over. I miss yoga classes at school. Naturally they're full for spring so that's sort of out of the question.

I know that once classes begin again I won't get as much exercise time in, but I would really like it if I could at least bother to do it a little bit this time around for the entire semester.

As far as Decluttering goes, rather than finishing this post yesterday I spent a bunch of time going through one of the hall closets. I cleaned out an insane amount of junk, both to donate and to trash. I just felt so much better taking that one small step that I cannot wait to drop off Mini-Geek with his grandma and get to work on today's project, either my bedroom closets or the basement storage!

Step One: Declutter

A new year is rapidly coming up and I'm preparing to make changes in my life. They are things I've been wanting to do for a little bit now but I have been putting off because I took on far too much this semester and then I was doing the whole Christmas thing and now I have time to relax. If I get on it I'll write a post a day for each of things I want to change.

I was reading a post the other day and it further enforced that I want to declutter my life, starting with my physical home. I have too much stuff. Some of it has no point. I'm a pack rat. I have a Jones Soda Co bottle because it has a hysterical cat picture on it sitting on my desk, somewhere around here I have a cheesy little trinket box that I have had for well-over 10 years, probably closer to 15 than 10 for reasons I really do not understand. I realize that with a 4 year old (as of yesterday!) and being a student "stuff" can't be avoided. Papers will occasionally overtake my desk. Toys will migrate throughout the house. However there is far more than I need to be in control of that I am not. I have a basement storage unit that is full of stuff, most of which I don't need or use anymore. Having a child and pretty much wanting another one, eventually, doesn't help. But I do need to remember that when that "eventually" comes I will be in a different position than I am in now. I will have more disposable income than I currently do, heck I have more now than I did when I had my son. Getting rid of things like the giant plastic high chair is really not that big of a deal. Toys do not need to be kept. Ever. I mean aside from a few special ones. Maybe. Clothes that I do not wear need to go.

I just have too much meaningless stuff.

I also have a nasty habit of not putting the more used stuff back where it goes. I often find I have a pile of text books, papers, and whatnot on the floor by my desk. Piles of hoodies find themselves throughout my home. (It's really more than cold enough that I should be wearing an actual coat by now. I think I'm holding out until it gets down to at least 12 at night so it doesn't seem so cold or something.) Wii games and DVDs don't get put away. Some mess is just more familiar to me I think. I grew up in a good-sized family. It's a big family by most American standards now. I had 3 sisters and a brother, my sisters are considerably younger than me (they're technically my half sisters). A mess here and there was completely unavoidable. Sure the toys got picked up the evenings and everything, but there was nearly always a pile of school papers and drawings and mail somewhere. The bedrooms were nearly never all spotless at once.

I also spent a lot of time with my packrat grandma, even living with her for a few years when my parents first split. I miss her very much and loved her dearly but when she passed away stepping into that basement truly made me realize she had a bit of a problem. She died in 2005. There were Brand Names catalogs from the 1980s in the basement. There were school papers from my father. There was tax stuff from much, much farther back than necessary. She also had this habit of writing notes to herself. There were little pieces of paper everywhere, tucked away just waiting to be discovered. We found stacks of paintings of people in the garage. She had once said she didn't know who they were, they came from her father's house.

I don't want that to be me. So decluttering, here I come.