The secret to life - finally revealed.

Hahahaha. You thought I had the secret to life. That's cute. OK, anyone who sees me on a regular basis knows I'm having a medical issue lately. Called aging. I don't really mind growing old and plan to accept it gracefully - in about 40 more years. For now I'm struggling to kung fu fight a seemingly endless crew of aging-symptom-bad-guys. As soon as I slam one down, another one sneaks up behind me. Sometimes I lose.

Here's a little story about a giant, nasty, vein-thing that popped out of my right shin about 5 years ago. It isn't a spider vein. It's like a couple of night crawlers fighting underneath my thin shin skin. I'm sure I could have some kind of surgery to have it removed, or just have my leg cut off altogether. But for now I've just learned to accept that I have some creepy stuff going on that doesn't really bother me if I don't look at it. But sometimes I DO win. Sort of.

For example, I noticed those "fine lines" on my face looked more like a pug dog, so I bought some super awesome chanel face products. And Arbonne. And some others. The good news is, I really do think it's making an improvement! The bad news is, whenever someone says, "oh, you still look young, LK," my heart starts to race and I wonder if I can really afford $500 of face cream every six months for the rest of my life! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO????? I'm sure there are lots of good options. Like selling my blood or something. Is there a market for old lady blood? No? Hmmm.

The worst thing that can ever happen to a woman is that she can gain weight. (Yes, I'm aware of all the tragedy in the world and I'm just being sarcastic. This is a blog for goodness sake so stop being so serious). I run. I work out. I gained weight. I got more serious and measured my food on a scale. No change. I did a 24 day challenge (Well, 20 days, I gave up at the end) and still no real difference. Last night I was reading something that mentioned "unexplained weight loss." Who has that? What is that like? Oh hey, I had Mexican food last night and a couple of margaritas, but I'm down another 2 pounds. Yessssss! I know there are cancer patients out there who lose a ton of weight and aren't happy about it, but that is EXPLAINED. I want unexplained weight loss. So if someone has that, please email me and explain it to me. Thanks!

In the mean time, I'm going to go put some of Jayd's inheritance on my face. Have a great day!

It's all about the budget

Have you ever found yourself lost in thought on the potty (uh, mom slip) toilet? Don't judge. There are times when the child is asleep, the house is quiet, no one is over, the phone isn't ringing, you don't have a burning desire to check Facebook or lululemon.com and you realize that you are still sitting there because you can't manifest enough "give a crap" to get up for a couple of minutes. You know you have things to do, but you just enjoy the rest even though you're not, well, manifesting the other kind of crap either. It's not like we sit down a lot when we have young children. Any seat will do.

I think about my schedule for the day. I think about my friends and whether they need encouragement. I think about hanging another rack in my laundry room so I can do three loads of hang-to-dry laundry on the same day without becoming overwhelmed with wet clothes draping off of every surface of my laundry room. Because we all know I am never, ever going to learn to space them out so the first one can be dry before the next one needs to be hung! But I'm getting off track. Well, in such a moment I had a silly thought. You know how some people love to talk about how they hate to just "flush money down the toilet"? I wonder how many of those people buy toilet paper???? I saw three of those cardboard things that toilet paper comes rolled around sitting in the garbage can and I started to think about it. Literally we just flush it down the toilet. I'm not advocating denying yourself the use of toilet paper. Its time between just sitting there on a roll and going down the toilet is brief, but at least you don't have stinky poop stains on your briefs!! Or your bikini, or your thong, or something new that I haven't even heard of yet...

Suffice to say, at that point it was time to halt the crazy-thoughts-train, get off the potty and go do something productive. Like find some space for that third load of laundry that just finished and has absolutely no place to be hung. In the interest of more rest, I decided to share my deep thoughts first in my blog, but now I better get to wallpapering my laundry room with delicate lulu outfits. Enjoy your snow day and stay warm!

The Amazing Evergreen

Many of you have children. That means you remember having a 3-year-old. A 3-year-old doesn't really say much. HAHAHAHAHA. I just threw that in for my friends who don't have children. We all know a 3-year-old talks constantly. Constantly. And they really only ever want to know one thing: What is that? How does it work? How did it get made? What is this string for? Oops, how did it get broken? Where did it come from? How old was I when it got there? What is it going to be like tomorrow? Why? How? Yeah, but WHY?????

I like to answer all these questions, again and again. Much like I enjoy holding something heavy for a very long time. Because otherwise how could I get stronger and better? Patience is just another muscle, right? Let's flex that baby! Is that all you've got Jayd?? You're not even TRYING to wear me out!! In reality, I want to answer all these questions because she's thinking and learning, and for a very short time she wants to talk to ME. Constantly. I know I will ache for these days when she is 15 and in her room for 16 hours a day listening to some kind of music genre that hasn't even been invented yet.

Occasionally though, we get the treat of her explaining something to me instead of asking me to explain things. These are the sweetest moments. She is so matter-of-fact, and interjects appropriate teaching lingo like, "you get it?" It's cool sometimes to realize that she understands a concept that I wouldn't think is very important to her (ie, it doesn't have to do with princesses). Mommy, when you eat, that gives you energy. You need energy to do other things, like run in a circle with your friends before dance class. You get it? Yes Jayd, I get it. It's especially rewarding when she throws in, "you never knew how to get energy before! Now you do! Isn't that AMAZING?!" Haha. Yes, Jayd, that is incredible! Shortly afterwards she will say something like, "why isn't that car moving? Maybe they ran out of gas. Cars need gas for energy just like we need food." Yep! I have a baby genius on my hands. I KNEW IT.

And that brings me to the amazing evergreen. Jayd was telling me all about evergreens. "They stay green all year, and the cold doesn't kill them. But sometimes they die from other things..." I promise I'm listening, but I admit I'm sorta doing the mom uh-huh from the front seat while she talks and I'm also, sort-of going over the list of things I'm out to buy, thinking of the best way to hit the stores without letting frozen things melt or drive to the same area twice. "...And sometimes they blow over in wind, and sometimes they are cut down."

"uh-huh"

"And sometimes you take a pine tree and you put it in the oven to bake it and it turns more yellow and then you put sugar on it and you bake it again and that's how you get PINEAPPLE!"

"Wait, what?" LOL. Actually baby, pineapple is a whole different thing, but they both include the word pine, and they are both plants, and pineapple is sweet as if someone added sugar. As I say this to her I think to myself, SHE IS A GENIUS!  So if anyone is interested, I think I'm going to set up the Jayd school of horticulture. Because until now, you never even KNEW how we got pineapple. And now you do! It's AMAZING.

Almost as amazing as the evergreen.

In a time before the hashtag #isthatonewordortwo

Sorry I've been gone so long. My computer broke 18 months ago and we all know typing out an exciting blog on an ipad keyboard would take me the same effort as writing it out in blood from pricking my own finger. But I got a new laptop for Christmas, so I can start boring you again with my two obsessions - my super awesome amazing daughter and my running (note, nothing super awesome or amazing about that. But I love it).

So, about the hashtag. Many of you have seen the Justin Timberlake SNL video about this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA&noredirect=1
I don't belong to Twitter yet, so I haven't found the opportunity to excessively use the hashtag. However I do see it in everyone else's posts and #ikindofgetit. #Anyremainingthoughtafteryoursentenceendsjustgetsaddedhere. #omgitscrazy.

I would try to get some kind of old lady and behind-the-times paranoia about how my daughter will never learn when words end and new ones begin, except I have had this "compound word" problem my whole life. I don't think I'm alone either. My old boss once busted one of her employees for "not working" when he asked if spider monkey (spidermonkey?) were one word or two. She later busted me, actually, for asking how to spell Leprechaun, but that actually was sort-of about work, and also is completely unrelated to compound words. So just forget I mentioned it.

OK, OK, so I doubt you use the word(s) spider monkey every day. But what about carseat. I send a text that I'll just pick my daughter up from school and she can get a little catnap in her carseat. Which turns into a big mess, because my overbearing control freak of a phone wants me to use "real" words. It turns catnap into Camaro and Carseat into Corset. So suddenly my child is getting a Camero in her corset - which just sounds more uncomfortable than anything wimpy Scarlett O'Hara had to endure with her Mammy pulling on those dang strings to give her an 18 inch waist again. I mean, right? The holidays were unkind to my body, but I still doubt a Camero would fit into any of my undergarments.

So I guess I just need to learn how to separate my words. Maybe the hashtag is my saving grace. While I know it's supposed to be written never mind, I could still be right if I just wrote #nevermindthewholething #myworkhereisdone #desertgirlout

The MIL edition

It's Thanksgiving. A time to be thankful. A time to be enveloped in the warmth of your family and your home. But who are we kidding? This four day weekend usually ends with a couple of family members no longer speaking to each other and a few others on new prescriptions of valium.

Unfortunately, since my husband and I are each one of only two siblings and because our families are geographically dispersed, I don't get to see large fireworks displays. However, I DO get to rub shoulders even more than usual with the creature that lives in my basement - my MIL. That would be short for Mother-In-Law. No F at the end.

"More than usual" is actually somewhat of a misnomer this year, since we have been existing in something Dante never bothered to write about that I will call "Sprained Wrist Hell". My MIL sprained her wrist in mid-October, magically becoming a blind paraplegic. The doctors can't really explain this, but I can. It's called "just her usual personality, but with a sprained writst".

For example, she has always micromanaged everything she observes in the car, probably out of a fear of some crisis that the rest of us wouldn't even imagine. For example, two minutes after leaving our driveway we get, "Jayden, don't sing the alphabet so loud. You're libel to make your mother distracted, cause her to drive off the road, and we will all end up in the hospital!" (I swear these are real quotes). And then there's always my favorite which is the constant comments on the way back from our neighborhood grocery store, "slow down, you're going to have to turn right when you get over this next hill." Once I snapped, "Do you really think I don't know how to get to my own house from two miles away?!?" - but she didn't notice or care. The next direction was delivered within 30 seconds. I was actually relieved, because then I knew I hadn't hurt her feelings. Whew. That was a close one. 

I actually do love my MIL, and she is a sweet lady. She loves me, my husband and my daughter, and she honestly tries really hard to respect my area of the house. A lot of women have worse mothers in law. It is important to understand that before I say this - I think she has a real condition that causes her to have severe anxiety over a multitude of crises that will NEVER happen. The obsession over these will cause things like a random text one day warning me never to use dryer sheets on Jayd's clothes because some of them have certain chemicals that completely destroy your ability to function physically and mentally - or something like that. I stop reading after the first 5-10 sentences and go on to my usual household chores, such as to throw Jayd's clothes in the dryer (with a dryer sheet). On my way back across the hall, by the door that functions as a gateway between my "home" and "the basement" I will discover a series of paper notes that have been pushed under the door, and I will also have a voicemail and an email. All addressing the current urgent issue of dryer sheet toxins. She does this instead of coming to talk to me - in the interest of not disturbing or bothering me, because there is absolutely nothing disturbing about that, right? But at least her heart is in the right place.

What a sprained wrist adds to all this, of-course, is that she needs to be driven everywhere, and subsequently escorted around wherever she is. This is where the hell comes in. Between multiple trips to various stores, post office, doctor, and whatever, we get to hang out a lot. Her sprained wrist makes her helpless, and I get such honors as holding the produce bag open while she very closely examines 10 or so pears one at a time and places them in the bag. She asks for everything in a kind of helpless little voice and makes a big production out of lifting a bag of broccoli (with her good hand). And that brings us to... THANKSGIVING!

She is, because she actually IS very sweet, making a pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving. Pies can be fickle, and my husband is picky about his pumpkin pie, so she bakes them in my oven instead of her basement appropriate toaster oven that's probably from the 50s. As such we got even more quality time together this afternoon. She started by asking me to read her the recipe, because she can't read with only one hand. My sixth grade self had to bite her tongue to hold back the "...you read with your eyes and not your fingers..." comment that was begging to be said. So I'm reading the instructions when she interrupts me to say, "if I do it like that, it will be gummy because the pie filling will seep into the crust and..." she kind of trailed off into an incoherent mutter. I stopped reading and waited to be directed. Was I free to go back about my business? Was I meant to keep reading? Finally she said, "Well, maybe some people like it gummy. Do you like it gummy? Is that why you want me to make it that way?" Now my teen self was biting my tongue. Because 14 year old Elle would have said "WHO LIKES GUMMY PIE? WHO???? And I don't care HOW you make it. I'm reading YOUR recipe to you at YOUR request. I'd rather be writing a blog about how fricking crazy you are!!!!!"

OK. Sorry. Just had a little break and some deep breaths. Out of curiosity, is it valium then beer then liquor? Liquor, pills, then wine? Just wondering for a friend of mine who wants to know. Not me. But let me know, so I can tell her.

Well, I'm signing off. I'm being beckoned to take a pie out of the oven. And that's ok, because that does actually require two hands. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Guess What I Learned Today

I have learned a couple of valuable lessons this week that I absolutely have to share. The first is, if you leave some laundry in the washer too long and it starts to stink, unless you like to smell like stink for months afterwards, it's a good idea to wash that load with one full cup of baking soda, a full dose of Tide with Febreeze, and the hottest water your fabric can handle. My mildew laundry was spring fresh again. Woohoo!

The second lesson is even better.

Gremlins are real. They got into a berry colored sharpie marker and caused some damage to some of my daughter's clothes. The evidence that creatures who are largely believed to be imaginary OBVIOUSLY did this is as follows: It's almost a full moon, which is when gremlins come out. It's almost Halloween, AND, this is most important, my princess-angel toddler would never EVER do that.

I naturally considered just throwing the newly designed clothes into the washer with a full cup of baking soda and a full dose of Tide with Febreeze. It seemed to be the laundry answer of the week. But instead I went to work with some stain remover and color safe bleach. The verdict is still out, but the likely answer is - the marks are indeed permanent as is clearly written on the casing of the marker.

Exhausted and anxious I went into my bedroom to see if the gremlins also got my light-cream, almost white carpet. They didn't! But even as my lips were attempting to curl into a smile, I felt them dragging back and revealing my teeth in more like a werewolf effect. The gremlins had marked all over my expensive wood bedroom suit. The one my husband bought me for our anniversary 2 years ago.

With thoughts of trying to personally sand and refinish the furniture perfectly such that my husband would never notice, without him first seeing the marks, and without him noticing furniture stain smells, I got out my phone and consulted my best friend, Google.

With very little effort I found what I needed... on a finished surface, a sharpie could be removed with isopropyl alcohol. Hubby was giving princess-angel a bath, so faster than Flash, I got the alcohol and some paper towels and wiped at the marker, completely forgetting the recommendation to first test a non-visible area of the wood. Voila! The sharpie was gone! And the finish was fine!

Whew. Good thing the darling husband doesn't read my blog. He never has to know. Now to pop some popcorn and curl up on the couch. I'm done for today. I leave you with this advice: If you do happen to see the Gremlins - please don't feed them after midnight.

What Was I Thinkin'?

A few months ago, I signed  up for the Ragnar Tennessee with 5 of my girlfriends. The Ragnar Relay series is a group of 200 mile races in various parts of the country that you run as a team (hence the relay part. You didn't know you were getting a vocabulary lesson too!).  The Tennessee version is from Chattanooga to Nashville.  It's a lot of fun if you can stand living in a van for at least 30 hours with stinky, sleep deprived runners being forever bound by getting each other through all the typical escapades of runners like poo-mergencies and snot rockets and of-course running day and night until your team crosses the finish line. It's never boring. At the Arizona (Del Sol) Ragnar in February, one of our teammates was accused by the spouse of leaving a worm in the toilet via #2 before leaving for the race. WHAT? Yeah babe, my crazy third world worm that I of-course actually have in the first place is now in the toilet. But the excitement and bonding doesn't end with just your team. You usually meet some interesting (and desperate) people in the porta potty lines too. You just can't buy closeness with a total stranger like that. So go sign up for a Ragnar. NOW.

Usually there are 12 people on a team. You may notice there are 6 of us. We are an ultra team. All the same requirements with half as many people. We each run twice as far. What was I thinkin'?

One thing true of all races is it feels good just to finish. And since I am running 36 miles in this race I had to make some preparations (i.e. months of training) in order to ensure that I finish. One such preparation is running two half marathons in the same day. I have to train myself to run on tired legs. What was I thinkin'?

What a coincidence! That training run was... today.  I woke up at 3:30, met my teammate Angie around 4am and got off to a great start. We were pressed for time so although we set out to run 13, we only ran 10. They were a strong 10, and we could have easily pushed out another 7. I went home feeling like a champ and went to church.

My second run, again scheduled for 13 miles, was at 4pm with Olivia. I had already started to feel tired. My legs hurt. Too many nights of 6ish hours of sleep were catching up with me. It was about to rain, and basically our loop course was "uphill the whole way". It was whine time. But nothing was stopping me from my goal. I grabbed my water and my Cliff Shot Bloks and off I went to conquer the world. Luckily I wore some hot pink Zenzah compression sleeves, and therefore my legs wouldn't get tired. HAHAHAHAHA. No.

We were trotting out the miles and I was kinda wishing my compression leg sleeves went thigh high. My quads hurt. I wonder if hot pink thigh high compression sleeves with short running shorts would make me look like a hooker? Nevermind.

We got to mile 5 and back to our water. I guzzled water - producing sounds sort of like a hippo. I also decided to take my Shot Bloks. It was early but they should give me a little more energy. And while we were stopped, I decided to take care of that sniffle I'd been struggling with by utilizing a running tool called the Snot Rocket. Plug one side of your nose, aim for the grass, and blow hard. The result was a fat, translucent, 4 inch long slug that crawled out of my nose and across my cheek - dangled for dear life for half a second, then fell to its death into the grass. Olivia turned away immediately and threw up in her mouth a little bit. Then she turned back to look at me and calmly said, "I love you Elle". I'm not a phychiatrist, but I'm not sure she meant it.

We were off again. Somewhere around mile 10.5, we veered AWAY from where we would have to go to get back to the car, which any true wilderness survivor would know is stupid, but runners constantly do in the interest of getting the prescribed amount of miles. After approximately 16 steps, I started to wonder if I could finish the run. I was suddenly and incurably FAMISHED. I started walking. Olivia asked what I needed, and I knew exactly how to answer because the smell of it, the sight of it, the feel of it, the taste of it was filling all my senses as if it were right in front of me - I needed a giant meatball. The ONLY thing I could think about was that giant meatball. Having it was like an intense fantasy. I must have seen one of these before. I know it's exact size and color (4 to 5 inches in diameter, juicy, a little red sauce around it). I knew exactly how it would feel in my hands. Silverware wasn't really part of my fantasy.

Either because I was obsessing over a giant meatball or because my eyes were actually twirling around in my head like those cartoon birds that get hit in the head with a hammer, Olivia let us turn around and go back toward the car. We finished our run at about 12 miles.

At the parking lot, my husband and little girl were waiting. We exchanged some words about something and made some agreement about what would happen next, all of which was completely lost on me as there was one thing on my mind. Meatball.

Even in my stupor, I recognized my own delirium, so I starting thinking of the fastest way to get any nourishment. I dug through my bag and found a glorious baggie of gummy fruit snacks of my daughter's. They were gone immediately. Somehow I remembered the gas station about half a mile down the road and went there. I couldn't honestly tell you what happened in there. There was some discussion from the clerk about my socks. I'm pretty sure I was just nodding and drooling. I got back to my car and examined my purchases - a personal sized bag of Funyuns, a bag of Spree tangy candy, and a package of jumbo chewy SweetTarts. What was I thinkin'? No really, what. was. I. thinking?

At the time, it didn't matter. I opened the Funyuns and ate every single one. I then ate half of each bag of the candies. OooooOOOOOooooo. My stomach was turning. I can tell you WITH CONFIDENCE that none of that was an acceptable substitute for a giant meatball.

But in the end, I ran 22 miles. This is no great feat for any other member of my team, but I feel like I achieved something. I am sleeping in tomorrow. And probably finding a giant meatball. But for now, goodnight.