My Fitness Bully

You know what feels great?  When your jeans just glide on.  You know what doesn’t feel great?  When they don’t.  You know that sensation of  “uh-oh” you get when you go to put your jeans on and they don’t want to go on?  You decide that they don’t own you, you own them and they are going on.  So you tug.  And by tug, I mean you pull on the belt loops with all your might, suck in your stomach, cry just a little and hop around until that zipper is up and the button submits to your superior will.  You try to convince yourself that they are tight from the dryer.  You conveniently forget that you wore them already this week.  I spent my first year of college blaming the dryer for my incredibly uncomfortable jeans and not my vending machine habit and lack of exercise.  Yoga pants are like your mom and tell you that you look great all the time.  Jeans are like that girl you hated in high school – they tell it just like it is. 

Last month, I felt like my jeans were telling me “uh-oh”. Actually, they were SCREAMING it at me; I just didn’t want to hear.  I also realized that I was gaining and losing the same three pounds every week.  Drink and eat on the weekend, try harder during the week, oh I did so well, let’s drink and eat again this weekend!  I work out, I eat well, but I am at that age where once calories go in, they like to stay in.  (And I have a vicious oat bar addiction.)  Anyway, I thought I would turn to technology to help me stay the course and get back to being the boss of my jeans.  I downloaded My Fitness Pal and let it keep track of my calories and exercise and stay the course.  I hate this damn app more than anything in my life.  My Fitness Pal?  More like My Fitness Bully.  I hate how I type in the oat bar I ate for breakfast and it tells me “This food is high in saturated fat.”  Great, oats and shame for breakfast.  I especially hate when it lights up to let me know that I “have exceeded my fat intake for the day.”  I don’t care about that, how many calories do I have left to eat?  That is all I care about.

Resident evil.

I find I have entered into a very passive-aggressive relationship with this damn app.  It yells at me about fat intake and I stand in the kitchen eating chocolate chips by the handful and recording that I ate one tablespoon of chocolate chips.  HAHAHAHA!  Do you know how many chocolate chips are in a tablespoon?  Four, maybe five, if you lick them first and stick them together.  (Just guessing at this, by the way).  I also get annoyed when I go to type in what I had for dinner, let’s say tofu tacos, and forty different items come up.  You know what I do?  I choose the one with the fewest calories.  Don’t judge, you know you would do it too.

This app managed to bring out the thirteen year old girl that resides in my head and tells me that I am not pretty enough or smart enough or good enough.  No matter how hard you think you have killed off your thirteen year old girl, she is in there lurking and waiting for her comeback.  (Mine has really bad hair and is wearing a stupid shirt with teddy bears on it and acid washed jeans.)  I have really had to step back from my inner crazy this week and remind myself I am not thirteen. My jeans may have been a little tight, but I am mostly healthy.  I am strong; I can dead-lift two hundred pounds for crying out loud.  Take that thirteen year old girl in my head!  I don’t need you or this stupid blue app to tell me I shouldn’t eat oat bars for breakfast.   

I am sure there is a balance of being smart about what you eat and how you exercise, but I find that this app and the scale left out drive me to extremes.  I will tuck the scale away and delete the app (ha-ha, I win!) and go back to the thinking that if the jeans fit, all is good.  If they don’t fit, well, I did see that HEB is selling snap-up house dresses now, so there are always options.  

Proposition Common Sense

It is not even 8am and I am disgusted with America.  So disgusted I have decided to run for something: councilwoman, mayor, Dictator for Life.  We need something to make a change, something to bring about action and something to get America’s collective head out of its ___.  (No swearing got to maintain my image.)  I am going to run on a platform of common sense.  In fact, my slogan may just be "A Vote for McMahon is a Vote for Common Sense!”  My first Proposition will be entitled Proposition Common Sense.  Can’t really argue against common sense, can you?

There are many items covered under Proposition Common Sense so let’s break it down.

First act under Proposition Common Sense:  the eradication of illegal left-hand- turn drivers on 620.  I realize this may not affect everyone in Austin, but don’t worry, the success of it on 620 will see it copied to streets near you.  There are a row of fast food places on the left side of 620 that have people making illegal left hand turns despite the NO LEFT TURN signs posted every ten feet.  

The red slash indicates NO.

This clogs up the left hand turn lane for people making legal left turns at the light and annoys me.  Therefore, people making illegal left hand turns will have their tires shot out by a well-positioned sniper and their cars impounded.  They will not receive their cars back until they complete community service hours in the following areas: nutrition, time-management and safe driving.  This is a great idea because it will boost employment as we need snipers stationed round the clock.  You are welcome.

Next will be the parents who do not understand the basic principle of a school drop-off lane.  You DROP OFF.  You do not put the car in park, you do not exit your vehicle, and you do not open your child’s door or your trunk at any point.  You do not hand your child his backpack while standing in the middle of the lane nor brush his hair or finish his homework for him before he goes in.  Again, you DROP OFF.  Also, you do not sit in the lane and watch that your child successfully walks the ten feet from your car into the school.  I know, I too have a child who could get lost in those ten feet, I understand your worry.  However, your child will go to college someday, start preparing now and start by letting him walk those ten feet without your eagle eyes trained on him.  Parents who insist on either infraction above will also have their cars impounded.  They will receive them back once they complete community service in the area of helping others.

Also considered under Proposition Common Sense, people who still don’t know how to order a drink at Starbucks.  You know, the ones that stare at the menu with a pained look as forty-five people queue in behind them?  Look, I know the drinks are written in made-up Italian, but it is not hieroglyphics, you can do it.  And if you can’t, get out of line.  Come back at 10am when someone has time to hold your hand and explain the differences between a grande and a venti.  Right now you have raised the blood pressure of the forty-five people behind you and given the poor girl behind the counter a bladder infection because she can’t go on break until you order.  Offenders of the Starbucks portion of Proposition Common Sense will be sentenced to serve their community hours in a literacy program.

I was going to include coworkers who don’t hold the door even though they see you coming, however this morning, instead of offering me a “hey I see you but I am not waiting” half-smile, my coworker  commented that it was an awkward wait for me, but still held the door.  Good work sir, you can be my campaign manager. 

All these positive changes coming from just the things that annoyed me this morning!  Imagine if I really listened to the news or got involved in my community! There would be no stopping the things I could add to Proposition Common Sense.  Are you with me Austin?  How about it America?  We fought hard for our right to vote, so use it wisely and vote for Common Sense.  (Again, how could you say you voted against Common Sense and look like an intelligent adult?)  I’ve covered all the angles!  It’s what you do when you are in power and once more, you are welcome.

P for Parenting, P for Pride

Parenting: it is a mixed bag.  You are happy, you are sad, you feel like you own it, you feel like it owns you.  You are sure you are doing everything right, you are sure you are doing nothing right.  It is easy, it has never been harder, you love it, you want to run away from it.  It can seem like everyone around you has all the answers and are doing everything right, so you make snarky remarks about them to make yourself feel better.  This works for awhile.  

With a teen, a tween and a big kid, parenting lately has been something that I feel like I just joined.  I have felt at a loss on how to deal with bad behavior that doesn't stop. I have felt lost on helping kids through crushing blows. I have felt meaner than Cruella DeVil ever was when I yelled "This conversation is over!  You are doing it." and walked away.  I probably even kicked one of the dogs out of the way as I did it.  Bill and I have had countless talks about what it is, what are we doing, what are we doing wrong and wondering if parenting ever gets fun again.  We even started to wax nostalgic about the crying poop years; the 0-3 years when everyone is either crying or pooping or crying and pooing at the same time and you feel like your life is one vicious cycle of crying and poop and you will be mired in the poop years forever.  

Definitely crying and pooping.

But they pass; everyone eventually poops on their own and the crying tapers off as well.  So we know that these hard years of parenting will pass too and we will be left behind as the kids move on, so we try to find the joy in it.  Even the crying poop years had joy.  Small warm bodies fresh from a tub smelling like Johnson's baby wash and encased in ducky pajamas melting into you as you read a bedtime story.  Sigh.  But now, in all honesty, it can be awfully hard to find that joy amid the drama and confusion and hormones.  

This week I was incredibly blessed to find moments with all three of my kids that made me see the people they are becoming.  That made me realize all the drama, confusion and hormones and relative insanity that is our day to day is shaping these kids into the adults they will become.  As I realized this, I was overcome with pride.  The weary of the past few weeks was replaced with pride.  Glowing, heart-exploding, tear-leaking pride.  Not pride in myself or my parenting, but pride in what these kids are achieving, what they are doing and who they will become.  

The teen is a driver.  A registered, approved by the state of Texas driver.  She operates a motor vehicle mostly to take herself to and from work.  She may drive me crazy with her inability to pick up after herself or hear what I am saying, but I am so proud of how she handles responsibility.  She even drove her sister to school one day this week and treated her to Starbucks on the way. Glow.  The tween competed in her first ever athletic competition and while I am sorry for her it was 90+ that day, I was so glad for the excuse of the big sunglasses I got to wear that hid my my leaky-eye pride.  Sniff.  And the boy?  He stomped off to school because he was angry at me and in doing so ignored our neighbor who was telling him to have a good day.  When I told him later that day he had to go over and apologize, he didn't argue.  He went out the door and across the street and did it.  Heart-exploding.  A perfect trifecta of moments showing me that they do hear us.  They do get it.  They will be good people.

I guess that parenting goes through stages of development as the kids move through their stages.  Hands-on, hands-off, tolerant, involved, wait-and-see, jump right in.  It is confusing, it is hard and sometimes it is no fun at all. Maybe one day we will look back on these years of drama, confusion and hormones and think of the joy.  Ha!  Okay, I hope we can look back at these years of drama, confusion and hormones and remember the pride.