The one I've been meaning to write for a while

This holiday season seems busier than years past. I guess that happens each year that passes -- the time goes faster.

But it's been different this year, because despite the fastness of it all, it's better. I said to a friend the other night that for the first time in a really long time, I am really deep-down happy, and that makes all the hustle and bustle so much more ... fun!

For someone who's struggled with depression over the years, especially in the dark dreary winter months, it's odd to sit back, look around and think to yourself: "There is no place I'd rather be than right here, right now, where life is good."

That's a big part of what I was thankful for this Thanksgiving. And it's a bigger part of what I'm celebrating this Christmas.

I'm looking forward to the happiest of holidays yet. Merry Christmas!

I can see clearly now!

It's a coincidence that I had to go to the eye doctor (finally) right around the time of my 44th birthday. These old eyes just aren't what they used to be, much like the rest of me (harumph)!

Ever-so-gradually for about the last 18 months, my vision has been slipping. What once was sharp, fine-tuned, crisp at a distance is now fuzzy, color-blobbish, definitely in need of a tune up ... and what used to be clear as crystal up close has to be pushed out to arm's length just to be decipherable.

Reading glasses helped for a while. But there are only so many strengths you can "graduate" to before you finally say to yourself: "Self, go to the damn eye doctor, for goodness sakes!"

Turns out I am what the good doc calls "a great candidate for monovision contacts." One contact helps you see the distance clearly; the other focuses on the up-close stuff. They've been in my eyes almost two weeks now, and I have to sayI HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS MISSING WITH BLURRY VISION!

Wow, is the detail ever detailed! And I definitely should have had these peeper assistants BEFORE I painted the trim in my house. But that's another story.

There are a few adjustments to get used to when they're in. It's kind of like auto-focus on your camera lens when you switch from up-close work to distance viewing, and your eyes have to more or less train themselves to adjust and focus properly. At first, it was a little disorienting. Now, I hardly notice it.

The pros of my newly focused eyesight:

• No more searching for a pair of misplaced (or forgotten) readers around the house, at work or at restaurants
• Fewer headaches from eyestrain
• And safer driving conditions for me and all those around me

I should have done this a LONG time ago...

Dear blank, please blank.

Have you ever been to visit the funny folks at Dear Blank, Please Blank? Today's post made me laugh and spit. And possibly snort.

Dear Ex-Boyfriend,

Remember when I said, "It's not you, it's me"? I lied. It was
definitely you...

Sincerely,

You're a Jerk.

Go visit DBPB when you have a chance. Some of their posts are outrageous ... but still good for a nice, big laugh.

First day of middle school

No jitters, just unabashed excitement about the upcoming adventures of sixth grade. Who would have figured that?

I was just amazed she could carry the messenger bag loaded with a half a year's worth of supplies. It weighed almost as much as she does.

After day one at the new school was over, the report was all good: Loves her home room teacher, loves math (with home room teacher), can't wait for social studies, and no problems whatsoever getting her locker open.

Happy back-to-school time!

I am enough.

A blogger I follow recently posted a link to the I Am Enough project as a way of reminding her readers that even when you think "you're the only one feeling this way," you are not alone.

Sometimes I feel like it shouldn't be so damned hard to be happy. Other times, I'm just happy. The ups and downs and ebbs and flows come and go as the months roll by. Frustrating? Yes. But thinking about "I Am Enough" has helped put it in perspective for me on this summer Thursday.

I am grateful for where I've been, what I've learned, how I've grown, what I do and who I have in my life. But I am frequently guilty of questioning whether "all that" is truly enough. Could I do more, give more, live more, love better, work harder, ask for less?

Yes, on all accounts. But then what? Keep doing even more, giving ever more, living more, loving better, working harder and asking for even less?

What I have is enough. Where I am is where I'm supposed to be right now.

I am creating my own story, not letting others create it for me.

That is enough.

They're ugly and they don't work.

I hate those Shape Ups shoes. I especially hate the ones that Joe Namath pitches on lame television commercials.

And now comes this shocking news: Not only are they UGLY, but also they DON'T WORK!

Maybe that will finally stop people from making the mistake of buying (and wearing) these things.

If you bite it, write it (a weight loss tool I cannot ignore any longer!)

On Dec. 2, 2009, I joined Weight Watchers for the third time in my life.

The first time was in 2000 after I had Zoe and was not successful at shedding all that baby weight. I lost 40 pounds and kept it off for about four years. Then I gained it all back, plus some.

The second time was in 2006 when, after stepping on the scales and realizing I'd topped my nine-months-pregnant-with-Zoe weight, I knew I had to do something drastic. I lost about 20 pounds, then gave up.

Third time is the charm, right? And so far it has been. Except this summer, I've hit a plateau after dropping a total of 35 pounds. The reasons are all too familiar.

Excuse #1: It's too hot / I don't have time to exercise.
Excuse #2: I don't have time to shop / cook / eat healthy.
Excuse #3: I don't really need to go to EVERY single weekly Weight Watchers meeting.
Excuse #4: Going a few points over my daily / weekly allotment is not going to hurt that much.
Excuse #5: It's such a pain in the butt to keep track of everything you eat, every day.

For me, it comes down to accountability. I have to exercise. I have to eat right every day. I have to go to meetings to weigh in on a public scale where the number is recorded in a little book. I have to keep track of what I eat to the nth degree. And I have to stick with this -- for me!

Today, I recommitted to the WW principles that helped me be successful so far. Every single bite of food that's gone in my mouth has been recorded so I can tally points and hold myself accountable at the end of the day. A friend nudged me to sign up for a Pilates class that we'll attend together. I'm going back to the public weigh ins at my at-work WW meeting tomorrow. And I plan to walk on the treadmill (inside where it's air conditioned to a cool 69 degrees!) as soon as I get home from work.

My goal is to drop another 9 pounds by my 44th birthday -- reaching a symbolic 44 pounds lost by my 44th -- giving me a little over two months to push through this plauteau. Wish me luck on this next phase of the journey! Every little bit of encouragement most certainly helps!

Two words: Major yum!

I made this blackberry cheesecake over the weekend, using a recipe I saw on The Pioneer Woman Web site. (Ree Drummond is my hero.)

Words cannot describe how good this cheesecake batter tasted RAW. I'm not even kidding. And when it was cooking for an hour in the oven? A little piece of me died and went to heaven.

I even modified the recipie slightly with low-fat sour cream and not-real butter ... and it's STILL good. I bet you could do fat-free cream cheese for a lower-cal version, but really, what's the point of that?

I have 15 more scrumptious pieces of this sitting at home in my refrigerator. That should cover breakfast, lunch AND dinner for the next week.

If you're a cheesecake fan, you absolutely must try this recipe. Put any berries you want on top. The "cake" itself is scrumptious.

Reason to smile

Flowers always make me smile. These, especially.

The lilies smell divine. The roses are a fabulous shade of deep, hot pink.

Now as long as my brown thumb doesn't do anything dumb, maybe I can enjoy them for a few days longer!

Prepping for the season

Cheer camp ended just before Z left for California for a month.

After three straight 7-hour days of practices that left her sore, tired and unbelievably excited about the upcoming season, she and the LMS 6th grade squad posed for a group photo.

Then they swam. Ate a lot. Goofed around as a group. And went to their respective homes and collapsed.

Football starts August 18. Go Tigers!

Where's reverse?

Recovering from a bit too much sun and a bit too much family togetherness this weekend, I'm in search of a good boat mechanic -- preferably one that knows how to find reverse and make it work on my (expletive removed) boat. Ahem.

Yes. It was the first time on the water this summer. All things went swimmingly (I thought). Until realizing, just a few moments too late -- as in after the boat was off the trailer and floating amongst 12 other boats at the launch ramp -- that HEY! I can go forward, but I need BACKWARD TOO!

Uh huh. Spinning in circles in a small pond of a launch ramp area while you try to figure out if you're just a (expletive removed) idiot who can't put the boat in gear. OR. If your reverse is broken! Yes. That's what I said. Reverse. Broken.

Forward worked fine. It went fast, too. Idle was not at all idle. It was still forward. Reverse? It was also forward. So there was an issue, to say the least.

I tried describing the situation to a boat-fixer friend by phone while floating in an idle zone, beer in hand. What should I do, I said, if the only way to truly stop the boat is cut the engine and throw the anchor? The answer: Hang on, especially when trying to get the boat back on the trailer at the end of the first-of-the-season boating day extraordinaire!

Helpful, that.

All's well that ends well, I suppose. The boat got back on the trailer. There were no parts or people harmed in the process. And I have a call in to the mechanic of my dreams.

We'll see how long it takes to get things moving in reverse again.

Standby to receive pics

I finally did it.

Months of window shopping and online review reading later, I bit the bullet today and bought what I hope is a fantabulous camera to get back into amateur photography.

I used to take tons of pics. In my mad-scrapbooking days, I had boxes and binders and photo sleeves full of subject matter from which to choose for page after page. Somewhere along the line, though, I put down the camera and rarely picked it up again.

Cell phone technology didn't help matters. If I "had" to, I'd snap a shot with the crappy built-in camera and maybe upload it at some point.

Too bad for me, because I've missed a lot of great shots through the years, especially from Zoe years 6-10. Ouch!

Now, with this excellent new piece of equipment over my shoulder, I hope to find my passion for photos again and take some frame-worthy pictures.

Let the grand experiment begin!

Looks like she made it!

I managed to get through yesterday without shedding a single tear. The end of fifth grade (elementary school) came and went, and there was only a brief misting on my part ... and then it was nothing but smiles. I look at her now and wonder what I'm going to feel like in another three years when middle school ends and the high school chapter of her life begins. She already seems so grown up to me. Attitudes and opinions are changing/emerging in interesting ways. A deeper friendship is developing between us. She's fun to pal around with or veg with on the couch. Summer is officially here. The calendar is already full. The march to middle school begins.

A mantra worth repeating.

One thing at a time.

Most important thing first.

Start now.

tween bullies can suck it

*Pardon me while I get this off my chest.*

I don't care how old you are, where you come from or how important you think you someday will be, bullying sucks.

And all the tween bullies out there? You can suck it. So can the parents of those tweens who condone and participate in the behavior, too.

I've been on the receiving end of bullying a time or two in my life. Watching my daughter go through it at age 11 gives me a whole new perspective on the practice.

Here's where I've landed: Girls at her age are sometimes bitchy, frequently moody and often overly dramatic. But that's no reason to cross the bully line -- especially with someone who is your friend (best or otherwise).

As for the parents who participate WITH their kids in this ridiculous behavior, all I can say is what goes around comes around. It always does.

Maybe you'll think twice about being a bad-ass 30- or 40-something bully when your baby is the one throwing up before school and crying herself to sleep.

Combat obecity with exersize.

There's a soft spot in my heart for anyone who can tackle a persuasive writing exercise on the topic of childhood obesity.

That soft spot is about 100x bigger when the persuasive writer is my daughter, the precocious 11 year old who recently argued in favor of "more recess" to battle the bulge.

I submit Exhibit A: The paper.

My favorite part? The spelling (or misspelling) of obesity. And exercise. Cracked me up to read it, even though her points were right on target.

Typically, her teachers take off points for every single I not dotted or T not crossed. Misspellings are usually flagged with red pen and "minus 1 point" labels. But not this time.

The evidence: Exhibit B.


My guess is the reviewer had the same reaction I did ... and simply said "A for effort!" Now that's persuasive writing, don't you think?

Brace yourself

Zoe's overbite will soon be a thing of the past.

In a mere 18-20 months -- and several thousand dollars of payments later -- she will be the proud owner of a beautiful set of straight choppers, courtesy of the fine folks at Carmel Orthodontics.

We went for "installation" yesterday morning. There was two weeks worth of pent up anxiety and fear and dread brewing in my short co-hort, and as she plopped down in the orthodontist's chair to begin her transformation, the big, fat, wet tears finally fell.

It's scary stuff for an 11-year-old girl nearing puberty to think about a 20-month commitment like braces. But she eventually dried her eyes and settled in for the two hours it took for bracket fitting.

She even let me document the process by taking some photos that, a year or so from now, I'm sure she'll regret having posed for. But nonetheless, here they are.

Before:

During:

After:

I think they look beautiful.

When did they all grow up?

Who is it that sings that song ... Don't Blink? Kenny Chesney?

Whoever sings it knows of what he croons. Because I had that "blink" moment all through the pre-Christmas, post-Christmas, Zoe-birthday season this year.

It started with the Christmas program at school. The one where Zoe sang a short solo and almost made me gasp out loud with her voice.

The dress, the hair style, the voice ... the rest of the kids lined up behind her. It all combined for one of those moments that all parents must have at some point.



You look up. The baby in front of you is now a pre-teen, and wow, where did all that time go? Who is that child on stage in front of hundreds of people, singing like that?



A month later, she delivered another figurative punch to the "mother gut" when she and a few friends posed for a birthday photo before devouring cake and ice cream to celebrate Z's 11th.


I took the pic and then got tears in my eyes when reviewing it. These kids have been coming to my house for 6-7 years now.

I remember when they were little sweaty balls of princess puffs, decked out in pink boas and sparkly hair ribbons.



What happened to the baby fat? The gaps from missing teeth? Ponytails? Playing "makeup" with each other with enough glittery crap to kill a cat?



I blinked. And then they all grew up. Including my own.

Christmas catch up

Yes, it's late. But so are my Christmas cards.

Go figure.

We kicked off the Christmas season with the traditional Xmas program at school. They have done a very good thing dividing K-2 and 3-5 into two programs so the parents and requisite others can attend.

Zoe sang a solo this year. Her first. She was nervous but did a great job on the parts she had. I'm still impressed (mother or not) at her ability to face a crowd and give it her all. The girl can take that to places, I'm convinced.

Anyway...moving on to Christmas.

Woke up early. And who am I kidding? Didn't really go to sleep at all becuase who can sleep on Christmas Eve?

This goes down in history as the earliest and last best "early Christmas" that I will ever probably go for. As in WAY too EARLY in the morning ... as in 3 AM.

It was still good fun. There's nothing like a kid on Christmas morning with presents to unwrap.

We went to my mom's later that day. Spent time with family and friends.

Joe was with Tammy after making the long trip from Georgia. Sally was sick so we didn't get to see her, but did hang out with Court. Timmy Lew stopped by. Cork made me think the ghost of Grandpa was in the house. Mom and Bill announced their engagement. Dad and Elaine fed us well.

It was a very good Christmas.

Thanksgiving in Savannah

Zoe and I flew to Savannah to spend Thanksgiving with my middle sister, Tammy. We left Turkey Morning, arrived before noon and got to enjoy some long-overdue quality time with Turtle, as Tammy is affectionately known in our family.

Tam, the perennial bachelorette, wowed us with her cooking skills and layed out a spread of food that would make the Colonel (as in KFC) proud. Yes, we had chicken for Thanksgiving ... but it was fine, even if it did make Zoe ask if we were breaking some sort of rule or something.

After lunch and a nap, we went to see The Blind Side (loved it!). Next day's itinerary: tour of downtown Savannah, walked around the old part of town, had lunch at a quaint and tasty deli, went to the beach, shopped and then made our way to a rendevous station with a giant tour bus that Tammy "guides" as one of her part-time gigs.

From there, we rode in first-class style up to Nashville, Tenn., stayed at the Opryland Hotel, saw "Ice" and The Rockettes, just for kicks, and ate a whole lot more along the way. A 6-hour driving trip back to Indy rounded out our version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles for this holiday extravaganza.

The last time I was in Savannah, Zoe was about 6 months old and it was July 4 weekend. The weather was so unbearable I told myself I would never, ever return. There's something about having your lungs sear the instant you step out of a car or building that detracts from the whole vacation experience.

This time around makes me want to go back and back again, with a really great camera in tow. The architecture is stunning. The history is a storyteller's dream. The people are warm and gracious. And the pace is low-key and calming.

Our next trip may very well be sooner than later. Fall 2010 is sounding pretty good to me right now. And Paula Deen's restaurant is on my list of places to visit. With reservations this time.

What I learned at Camp Tecumseh

I missed a very special work-related conference and pre-kicked off my 43rd birthday with a trip to Camp Tecumseh near Lafayette with a group of 60 (give or take) rowdy fifth graders.

What a trip! Literally.

The fifth graders learned or refreshed themselves on various leadership and citizenship skills. And I learned a few things, too. Among them:

1. Never let them see you sweat. As in the fifth graders. When you're supremely irritated by the screaming sounds of their youthful voices -- on a bus, in a cabin, at lunch or just in general -- don't let on. Because they sense it, and they get even screamier (yes that's a word) just to see your reaction.

2. Listen. A lot. Because when you do, you learn things. Simple and complex, fifth graders have much wisdom to impart if you take a minute to hear them out. Even when they ramble (as my own is highly capable of doing.) What you'll learn depends on the topic of course. But I found it eye opening to hear what they're thinking about these days ... and willing to share with just about anyone who lends them an ear.

3. Appreciate the moment. There were all kinds of tasks and challenges that the kids had to complete at camp, and when put to the test, I'd venture to guess that 90% of them rose to the occasion. Sure, they were distracted from time to time. And there were a few who just did not want to participate. But when left to their own devices, they began to appreciate the "now" of the moment they were in and worked as teams to accomplish something together. When it was over, they talked about it. And they appreciated each other and the place they were at, both of which made success possible.

Fifth grade teachers should receive triple pay for what they deal with on a daily basis. God bless each and every one of them for tackling pre-tween issues of every shape and variety. It was an awesome experience, even if I came home cold and exhausted. I got to watch my girl do things I would have never tried at her age, for fear of failure or embarrassment.

That was worth it all. The lessons learned were a bonus.