Monday, April 16, 2012

Mu-SICK

Maybe it's crazy pregnancy hormones. Maybe it's the radio's fault and they overplay songs (and artists). Maybe it's that country music has gone down the toilet.

Whatever the reason, while I can hardly stand to listen to country stations these days! And we have 5 of them!  It's driving me NUTS because country is pretty much all I listen to since the alternative stations here tend to stink even WORSE than country.  Here is my Most Hated List (again, could be the hormones):

Kenny Chesney.
 I hate every. single. one of his songs.  Ironically enough, "She thinks my tractor's sexy" made me LIKE country music.  Now, 12 or so years later, I even hate THAT song, simply because he sings it.  There are 3 things, specifically, that make my hand shoot to the radio to change the station when Kenny comes on:

1) Each song is a variation of the same theme, "I don't want to grow up so I'm going to drink and sit my butt on a beach."  I canNOT get behind that theme.  Sorry, just can't swallow it.  It drives me crazy enough that it's pretty much how our generation acts on the whole, so why would I want to listen to people glorify it in song?  Well, I wouldn't.

2) He married Renee Zellweger.  Then they mysteriously divorced as she filed for fraud.  I pretty much dislike all of her movies, so how can I like the person that married such an atrocious actress? And how could I possibly respect you if SHE divorced YOU? Well, I can't.

3) I read he has a 29" waist.  Maybe it was even 28" or 27" (it was a long time ago).  I dated a guy (*cough*loser*cough*) that had a similar waist size, and he was all arrogant about it.  I imagine Kenny being all arrogant about his, too.  Perhaps he's not (though based on how many pictures he has his shirt ON in, I doubt that), but how can I listen to such an arrogant, shirtless jerk?  Again, I can't.

Zac Brown Band
Did I mention I hate hearing glorified immaturity in song?  Because again, that is every single song they sing! ""Had sweet love but I lost it, she got too close so I fought it..."  IMMATURITY "...now I'm knee deep in the water somewhere, got the blue sky, breeze blowin' wind through my hair..." SO I'M GOING TO GRAB A BEER AND SIT MY BUTT ON THE BEACH.  ARRRRRGGGGGHHH!  Zac, I hate you.  My hormones hate you, too.

Blake Shelton
Blake, Blake, Blake, I have loathed you a long time.  Any time a guy says (or sings) "Don't make me..." you should run away.  I run away from his songs, but unfortunately he has some catchy tunes so I'm totally torn - do I listen to the songs because they're catchy, or do I change the station because in my heart I'm pretty sure you're a jerk? How can I honestly listen to a jerk sing love songs?  It's a lie! It's all a lie!

Taylor Swift
If I don't like to listen to a jerk sing love songs, I am seriously ill whenever I hear a new song and it turns out it's Taylor Swift because even though it's new it's like I've already heard it. I have to give this girl SERIOUS credit first - she's a talented musician, good voice, and YOUNG to be doing all this (and managing fame so well!), but could you pleasepleasePLEASE make a song where you're not swooning about love? Crying about lost love? Burning pictures of your previous love? Running through the rain to your future love? SERIOUSLY?!

And the trouble is, I kid you not, 9 out of 10 songs played on EACH of those danged 5 country radio stations is by one of these people.  So I have some serious trouble listening to the radio these days and have switched to listening to classical music.  It lowers my blood pressure... at least until country music gets that toilet unclogged.

On a BRIGHT note, who else is in love with Eric Church's "Springsteen?" Me! Me!





Thursday, April 12, 2012

What's your favorite food?

Isn't it just about impossible to capture just how GROSS kids can get when they eat?  This all looks pretty messy, but in reality it took four wet rags to clean up the girl and the table - FOUR!  SO MESSY!

One of Caroline's very favorite foods is yogurt.  One of Caroline's pet peeves is to be fed (she wants to do it herself).  One of her reactions when she's peeved is to shriek at the top of her lungs while flailing her arms, kicking her legs, and hitting everything possible.  Awful, yes, and even worse when I have a nice spoonful of yogurt that she just sit so hard it flung against the wall.  So to avoid shrieking fits AND get her to eat her favorite food, this is what we go through!  I know it's all temporary (she will have NO friends in school if she eats like this), so I just enjoyed the mess and took a picture.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Shirk-out workout

I still LOVE going to the gym, but times have changed - for the weirder.

I used to work out to burn calories (weird, right?) and get toned up (SUCH a strange thing to do at the gym) but now I pretty much go and try to find the easiest things I can do to kill the maximum amount of time.  Cardio kills time, and I love reading magazines while I do cardio, so I brought Fitness last time and chuckled to myself at each article; "be your fittest in 2012!" or "lose 10 pounds by June!" or "tips to get your super-slim bikini body."  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!!! Not for THIS girl in 2012!  But I still go to the gym because
a) I like the gym, it's a nice time for me to think (or not think)
b) My kids like the gym, and I like free time away from kids
c) I want to avoid the tree trunk thighs that have haunted the last trimester of each prior pregnancy.

So I do lots of light reps and super-light cardio, but STILL sometimes it's too much - too much means that later in the day I will suffer from an immediate, overwhelming need to eat a lot.  I get shaky and weak and the only thing I can do is stuff my face - just because I burned a sissy 300 calories on the treadmill!  Come on, gym!  That's not even much at all, and is FAR outweighed by the ensuing odd combination of barbeque chips, cheddar cheese hunks, peanut-butter-on-bread, chocolate chips, and whole milk (whatever it takes to get calories in me quickly)... so then I am re-motivated to get to the gym and start the whole thing again. Needless to say, it's not a normal gym routine!  Let me know if you've got any great time-wasters at the gym (besides chatting with people - I hate gym chatters), I just might have to take up intense stretching sessions so I can keep going.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Obligatory Easter post - you know you want it!

Easter came and went with hardly any pictures at all!  I finally charged those camera batteries, and there they stayed - in the charger.  I finally put camera and batteries back together, AFTER the primary Easter egg hunt yesterday, AFTER finding Easter baskets this morning, AFTER church, AFTER delicious lunch, and AFTER our backyard egg hunt... so I got a couple random ones this afternoon.  You'd never know it was Easter, except that I'm labeling it as such!  Also, pretty dresses on the ladies :)
Joe invited his grandma, Eva, over for lunch, so he and the kids picked her up immediately after church (she lives about 15 minutes away) and brought her to our house.  He had cooked up a lovely roast leg of lamb and I put together some sides of sweet potatoes and asparagus, then Eva brought over an apple cake... but why list it all when I could simply say we GORGED ourselves on good food?  Let's just say that!  
The kids ran off their meal by hunting for eggs, swinging, enjoying getting Easter (the bunny) "out" (notice: still in a cage!), and eating more treats.  



WAIT... doesn't that NOT burn off food to eat more food?  That's what I thought, but whatever. 


This was about the best smile I could get out of Eva. Rumor has it, her birthday was this weekend - the big 8-0!  Happy birthday, Eva!  Come on over any time for leg of lamb :)
 And happy Easter to all!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Whuppsa-daisy

I scheduled that last post WAY in advance so I'd have time to get the pics off my camera, which had dead batteries, but I can't use the SD card because Joe's laptop doesn't accept SD cards, but you can't use the cord adaptor unless the batteries work, blah blah BLAH... and then the time came and went and it posted all by its lonesome, with no pictures.  Sorry!  But I updated, so check it back out.

Meanwhile, here are gratuitous pictures, gleaned from Joe's laptop (having a computer we rarely use can yield some fun surprises!).  While we now have 9 wonderful grandbabies in the family, remember the original 3? Man, those were some good times :)  Here's my original pregnancy.  Long hair! Chubby cheeks! Skinny husband!  Good memories.

My original handsome man.

Espen was next, with spectacular hair.


Kalena rounded out the 1st round by adding some estrogen to the mix

I about died laughing at this picture.  Ahhhh, good times!
Hope you enjoyed!