What ARE These Emotions?

As I get older, I'm finding small cracks in my armor. Last night at the kids' concert, I found myself actually getting choked up when my boy was on stage, thinking about how after next week, he'll be done with this grammar school where he's spent so many years, and he'll be moving on to something new.
And then when I went to say that to my husband, my voice cracked. And I thought, "What the ..??" That's not supposed to happen!
When tucking my little one in last night, he sang me a lullaby. My heart almost exploded. Leading me to question, who has turned on the great faucet of emotion I've got going on here?
Last month, while on vacation, we were watching a fireworks extravaganza in the happiest place on Earth, and I looked over and saw my 3 guys looking up, eyes wide, smiles wider, and the light and colors from the fireworks reflected on their faces, and the absolute love, happiness and gratitude I felt at that moment literally made my chest hurt.

Once upon a time, I held these people when they were tiny and brand new, and honestly believed at the time that it was humanly impossible to love them - and their father - any more than I did at that moment.

I was wrong.

Kid:1 Momma:0

Tonight my little one argued over dinner. No surprise, as he argues over everything. He protested the dinner offerings, pleading for something else. After explaining to him that it would take too long to make something else , I kept saying NO. At last he said, "But mom! I had such a rough day!" "So did I, and no one's making me dinner." was my reply. He stood up, and with tears in his eyes and absolute sincerity he said, "I'll make your dinner mom. With all of my cooking abilities, I'll make it for you!" Sweetest offer ever. Instead, I took a big hug, and then promptly caved in and made him a special order dinner. Such a con man, this one. But he's a really cute con man.

No Chip Manicure!

No, seriously, it hasn't chipped and I think I may never buy nail polish again. Yes I've said that before, after trying Incoco and Sally Hansen nail color strips. Those, they look great, but they start to come off the next day.
Allow me to explain. If I spent as much time studing as painting and maintaining my nails, I'd have a PhD already. For mother's day, my husband got me a gift card for my favorite nail salon. Decided to spring for the no chip manicure and found it to be pretty fricken awesome.
It's not nail polish, so they're kind of misleading. It's a gel overlay with a super shiny and durable topcoat. Voila! Nail polish look, overlay durability.
Since this isn't your standard polish, it takes a little more oomph to get it off when it's time for a change. If you've seen women in your local salon with aluminum robot fingers, that's what they're doing. I think I can live with that.
*only complaint: The color I picked out was a very deep red, dark and wine like. What I ended up with on my fingers is a bright hooker red. Not sure if they had the color mislabled or whether there's something else that accounts for the variation.
After 2 weeks I'll update on how it's held up. Depending on how much growth is visible, I may even let it go on a little longer.

Diet day, Um, 19 or so

Since I've gone ultra restrictive and lived to tell the tale, I feel like it's time to transition to an easier to follow, low calorie diet plan. Mostly because breakfast and lunch are kind of a pain in the ass when you're low carbing it. You have to MAKE breakfast, then take the time to eat it. Then you have to MAKE lunch (whether it's a chicken breast or a pork chop, it takes time!) and really, who has time for that? If I don't do that, then I have to shell out $9 for a freakin salad. Frankly, I'm getting tired of that.

Now I'm going to go for healthy choices and portion control. Today I ate half a sandwich and some fruit. I'll stick to sugar free coffee, and low carb dinners. The diet journey continues.

In other news, the NATO conference is here. A group of us went over to the center of the action today, and so far, it's very peaceful. Lots of groups, a lot of talking, music playing, singing. And this woman here. What you don't see is that she's facing the perimeter line of police, giving them this gentle reminder. That's what it's all about.

My Baby's First Day of

Today my 8 year old walked home from school for the first time. Not alone, of course, but with his big brother. While in my heart I knew they'd be fine, I still felt like he wasn't ready for that kind of a trek. Of course, big brother stopped off to buy them snacks, which is awesome, and then they arrived home in one (well, two) pieces. This was not my idea, I would like that noted for the record. Hubs suggested it today, and the little one hesitantly agreed to it. I worried that the walk was too long for him, or that he'd run ahead of his brother and somehow get hurt, lost, hit by a semi, whatever. But when the time came that I knew they'd be close to home, I sent a quick text, found out they were close to home, and my heart returned to it's normal rhythm.

Diet Day 21 - Rated M for Language

It's Monday, that's weigh in day. This morning I pull out the scale and step on.... and..... no change. Wait. No change? How could there be no fucking change? I've not eaten so much as a motherfucking torilla in 3 weeks. I'm wearing clothes I couldn't even close a few months ago. My goddamn wedding rings are loose! What do you mean, no change, dammit? So I set about testing the scale. Put an 8lb weight on it. It says 7lbs. Then I stand on the scale and hold the weight. That's a 10 lb increase. Not only is my scale off, but it's math skills suck, too. Verdict? Fucking scale's broken. So I remain dutifully on the diet, since I can see and feel the weight loss. It would be nice to feel vindicated by stepping on the scale and seeing a decrease. But since my scale is an asshole, that's not seeming to be the case. So where do I go to get a good, accurate scale???

Diet Day 17

Good things are happening. Things like, I have on my favorite pair of jeans, which I haven't been able to squeeze my ass into for months. Also, Daimean is no longer failing any classes. (Why yes, I've set the bar pretty low) Sure, the low carb thing is getting boring. Better bored than fat, that's the theory I'm going with. Been eating a lot of salad and that's got to be a good thing. Yes, it makes me sad to dig out all the fun stuff like corn, black beans and tortilla strips, but for now, I can live with it. Found some amazingly low carb flatbreads which have allowed me to pretend I'm eating pizza. That's been kind of a saving grace. Mostly I've realized just how bad my eating habits had become. Not just the careless amounts of food, but it seems like I ate everything that was bad for me and nothing that was good for me. I'd gotten away from veggies and replaced them with potatoes. Are potatoes actually a vegetable? I'm not sure. But I do know that eating fried has browns in the morning, french fries at lunch and mashed potatoes at dinner cannot be good. Dessert lately has been jello, and if I'm feeling really adventurous, maybe some sugar free cool whip. Before the diet, dessert would be a cupcake. And not just once, here and there. But all the time. Now I'm considering getting a cupcake tattooed on my arm, you know, like you would for a fallen war buddy. As much as I hate to admit it, I obviously had a very unhealthy relationship with food, and I wonder whether I'll fall back into that. Where a half a bag of chips seems normal, and pizza is one of the food groups. It didn't happen overnight, I'm sure. But at some point I made the decision that I had too much going on, and I wasn't going to beat myself up over my weight. I guess that was my own free pass to eat whatever I wanted. Enought with the analyzing today. I've got a few more weeks to go before I loosen up the restrictions, and I hope to have my little food demons worked out by then.