My new favorite subject

I didn't know I had this many opinions about Kim Kardashian. This outfit.

CLINT BREWER/SPLASH NEWS ONLINE

Look, I am all in favor of getting big during pregnancy.  Biiiiig. Lord know I have done it. But, sister! You have to dress for it. This outfit is crazy.

Dipping toe back in the water

Having dealt with a crippling bout of anxiety a few years ago, I have become quite adept at identifying the warning signs that my mood is going to plummet. Once I identify them, it is easy to ride out and not panic.  Because panic is my special gift to the world.

Boredom, small things irritate me, frustration, feeling like I am on a hamster wheel - right.

Turns out, I was getting sick. And while the viruses were replicating inside my throat - they were wreaking havoc on my peace.  By the time that the telltale aches started in my back, I was in full-on hibernation mode.

This morning, about a week later, I woke up... drank a cup of coffee, checked on the seedlings that will be my vegetable garden, and marvelled at the beauty of the late winter sunshine.

I am pretty sure I am going to start feeling better.

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I cut my hair very, very short. It has the magical effect of making me look both older and younger at the same time. I am still trying to "make it mine," as they might say on some style tv show that I don't watch.

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Lucy is having a period of regression. She is talking like a baby, throwing tantrums and using one-word exclamations even though she has a very expansive vocabulary that she is guarding.

Lucy (Pointing to something): Mama! Pwetty!
(She can say her "R's" just fine. It is this thing she's doing.)

Now she even has the other kids fooled. Annie runs in this morning and says, "Mommy! Lucy went peepee on the pot-pot!" Well, that would be interesting if 1) Lucy hadn't been potty trained for the past 6 months and 2) Annie wasn't 6 years old - too old to say things like "pot-pot."

Looks like my bout with melancholy set everyone back a few paces.
Here's to getting back up and doing it right.

I'm Pretty Sure I'm Going Through Something.

Yesterday I applied to beauty school. I filled out an online questionnaire (or so I thought) and submitted it by text. No big, I thought. I just want to know how to do a serious blowout and then maybe later get serious about my next phase as aesthetician.

Today I got a phone call telling me that I was "accepted." "What?" I asked. "I am just interested in what you have to offer." She said, (in the vocal fry - which automatically makes me discredit any amount of intellect one may possess) "well, you've been accepted. When do you want to come in and take a tour?"

"First I need to ask you about schedules. I would need to take about one class at a time. I am on a very tight schedule as it is."

"Well, our part-time program goes from 4-9 pm Monday through Friday."

"That's part time?"

"Yes."

"What if I wanted to take fewer courses than that?"

"You totally couldn't handle it. It's, like, an amazing amount of information and there is no way that someone could remember all of it."

"No way?"

"Totally."
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I received a package in the mail today with clothes I ordered from Forever 21.

Forever 21? Who in the hell wants to be 21 Forever anyway, with no money, unable to handle her liquor, wearing cheap, skanky looking clothes that will be out of style by a week from now? I digress.

I ordered a skirt that looked kind of conservative/funky online. When I received it today, I realized that it is more thinly-veiled-slutty than anything else. Peep:

Seriously? Who wears something like that? And that was the beginning and the end of my shopping at anywhere other than my good old standbys. (Read: Costco.)

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I went to the runners store today to find out why my knees hurt when I am running, when they never used to before. I told him all about my new shoes, where my knees hurt and where and when I run. Basically the only thing that has changed is my shoes - and my age.

"Sometimes people can't run forever," he said.

Right.

I get it.

Carbs, Sex and NFP

Oh? I have your attention, do I?

Amazing things this NFP does for one's awareness of her body! I am NOT one who will toe the "I-Am-So-In-Love-With-NFP-and-It-Has-Made-Everything-In-the-World-More-Glorious" line. We do it. Let me rephrase that: I do it and I will continue to do it and there are graces that flow through that kind of difficult obedience. So don't get me wrong - whatever I tell you about NFP will be TRUE to the best of my experience: the good, the really bad, and the amazing. And there really are some amazings in there. (Though they be far in-between.)

After several successful weeks of watching my wheat and overall carbohydrate intake, today I found myself rummaging through our cabinets for anything, anything with sugar. I was ravenous - having visions of melting butter and brown sugar together in the microwave and eating it with a spoon. Luckily I didn't have to go that far as I found a half-emptied bag of milk chocolate chips which I promptly devoured like a crazed diabetic on the verge of demise. "Why am I behaving like this," I thought mid-binge. "It has been so long since I have even thought about carbs, let alone candy!...... Oh. Wait. I must be in Phase III."

For any of you who aren't familiar with NFP or it's intricacies, it relies on the understanding that the female reproductive cycle is broken up into three phases. To the novice NFP practitioner the physical changes surrounding these cycles seem subtle or nuanced. Once you really start to understand? You begin to realize that every woman consists of 3 different personas throughout the month. Let me illustrate.

Phase I
or Let there be Order!

(photo source)

A new start! A fresh beginning! Phase I begins your reproductive cycle with an "out with the old" type situation. There is a new flow to your month. There is a sloughing-off of anything of the past. You get to begin again, if you know what I mean. I typically spend this time making lists and plans. Rearranging the linen closet and drawing up lesson plans. Phase I is like the New Year of your cycle... but you know what comes after New Year......????

Phase II
or Mardi Gras!!

(photo source)

Phase II automatically turns me into the most fascinating woman who has ever lived. I am pretty sure that every joke I tell is hilarious, my lips are just a little bit more plump than normal and that even my sweats look just a leetle bit sexy. Phase II says, "Come and get me, darling, because I am going to give you a BABY!"

Phase III

or "Feed Me, Seymour!"

(photo source)

In Phase III, your body is saying "Am I or Aren't I?" and in that chance that you might be? Well, the hunger starts and the sleepiness starts and the feathering of your nest starts. All I want to do is mother, eat, and sleep during Phase III. I am at my most domestic, my most understanding, and my most lazy. If you know me well, you know that Phase III is my favorite. At my core I am a lazy, hungry woman who likes nothing more than a nap... and a long-forgotten bag of milk chocolate chips.

Honestly. If you have any questions about NFP, I will be happy to answer them because I do have a pretty comprehensive working knowledge of it - but I think it pretty much amounts to this:

If you feel like Sofia Loren? You can pretty safely assume that you are in Phase II.

Puh...Leeease!

Oh ye silly football fans.....

Why did you think that the half-time show at the Superbowl would resemble anything tasteful, classy or artistic? That is not rhetoric, friends. Ask yourself, why did you expect Beyonce perform in a way that was anything other than overtly sexual?

But she was scantily clad! Her performance was obviously sexually charged and TEMPTED men into feelings of LUST and IMPURITY!

To those who offer these weak attempts at vilifying only Beyonce and her performance I offer you this....

 Let me break it down for you, fellas:
Football consists of a rich benefactor who decides to purchase a group of physically dominant men to participate in a violent, warlike game. Paying spectators are served beer and are entertained by sexually charged performances by impossibly beautiful women.

and yet we somehow expected the Halftime Show at the Superbowl to be some bastian of morality?

Give me a stinking break.

What The...?

Guys, I promise.  I will get back to my favorite unpaid job of all, updating this blog, very soon. In the meantime I leave you with this.  Don't sue me if your retinas burn.  What in the everloving hell is she thinking?

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I read somewhere that maternity clothes are passe. One ought to just buy larger normal clothes and spare the world the cliched stretchy-tummied Motherhood Maternity garb.

Oh realllllly? Because if you ask me, Ms. Kardashian looks a little sumpin' like Violet Beauregard.

(Photo)