The Bikini Debate... Can You Still Pull One Off?

I think that everyone has some idea in their head that when it happens to them, it will officially signal the end of their youth. For a lot of people, that might be a turning a certain age, buying a house, or having a child. I like to be a little more practical about things like that, and I am a firm believer that none of those things really truly define you.

So what is it for me, that pretty much as long as I can remember, has signified my entrance in the downward spiral called old age.....

~The moment you realize you can no longer pull off a bikini~

I sh*t you not, my youth will wither and die the moment I decide that I can't get away with a 2-piece. So far, I have yet to look so nauseating to myself in mirror that I have took the plunge to old-lady land with a Miracle Suit.  This year though, I am one year older and one spontaneous vaginal delivery wiser. My stomach has now managed to accommodate 2 babies in the last 3 calendar years. The thought of me showing my mid-section anywhere but the confines of my shower makes me queasy.

Last year, this was a hot topic of conversation with my girlfriends. After much debate, we decided that you should rock a bikini until it is just absolutely inappropriate to do so, mostly because once you go one-piece, you can never go back. Its not like you go buy a one-piece on a whim and decide you are going to wear it intermittently with your bikini during the summer. Its an all-out, life changing event. Honestly there should be some sort of wait time like they have with buying handguns so that you don't run out and buy a Miracle Suit just because you are having a bad muffin top week.

This year, when we brought it up, I was absolutely shocked that about half of my friends immediately chirped up and said, "Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and get a one piece." What the hell girls???? I thought we decided last year that we were going to stand at the brink of old age and give it the finger in our bikini tops??? Why is everyone bailing on me?

Oh, and before some smart a$$ decides to pipe up and say, "Oh, your problem is solved, that's why they invented tankinis." Just STOP YOURSELF!.  In theory, they seems like a pretty decent idea. Hide the tummy, minimize the jiggle, avoid the perpetual camel toe of the one-piece, but then,  you try one on.
For some reason, the designers of these so called "tankinis" forgot that generally when you are swimming you do not really want your boobs resting on your muffin top. Even if they have cups or padding in the front, the back is ALWAYS some dinky little piece of elastic that looks like it would barely be capable of holding my hair back in a ponytail. Plus, every one I have ever tried on is always very loose, even if its the right size. I don't need more rolls that I already have. Have you ever seen anyone wear a stretched out wife-beater and look hot...I didn't think so.

This girl is probably hot underneath this ill fitting, boob sagging tankini

So whats so bad about a one-piece?
 1. Anything that pulls at both your boobs and crotch simultaneously is just a bad idea. (Imagine a simultaneous pap smear and mammogram experience)
2. Most are freakishly high cut. So you would like to cover your midriff, in exchange for showing off a weird part of your hip bones that has literally never seen the light of day. If they are not high cut, they are called "retro" and they look like some sort of sausage casing. (The boy short look is not fooling anyone people, if anything it actually highlights that your thighs are thunderous)
3. I tried on an actual "Miracle Suit" once at Dillards just out of shear interest. It took me 20 minutes to get it on and an HOUR to get it off. Honestly, I got a little bit panicky. If it hadn't had a $100 price tag on it, I would have purchased it so that I could have cut it off myself in the privacy of my own home. Think about it...it was dry. Can you imagine getting a wet one of those off? You would need a lifetime supply of KY Jelly to lub yourself in and out of that thing.

Do I even need to explain why this is not attractive?

Let me just say, I have not always been happy with the way my body looks in the above mentioned bikini swimwear. I just never felt like I looked truly bad enough to make the plunge to the momsuit. I have even gone so far as to toy with the idea of plastic surgery. Listen, big momma ain't too proud to get her tummy tucked. To be fair, I did try crunches for, like, A DAY, before I decided that I was going start Googling prices for an abdominoplasty.

 I am kind of embarrassed to admit this, but when I'm somewhere that other people have on bathing suits, I always try to find women that I think are my shape and size and try to decide how disgusting they actually look. When I look at myself, my eyes go directed to the areas that I hate, so I know that I am for sure my biggest critic. It would be nice to see my swimsuit, on someone with my body, that wasn't me, so I could decide if I needed to keep complimentary anti-nausea medication by the poolside.

Anti-emetic anyone????

Well, I'm still up the air about it, but so far this is where I''m at....
I'm 30 (Its the new 21, read my blog post about it),
I have two kids and could look WAY worse (Go to Walmart people and get a visual affirmation of that)
All the cute suits I find are bikinis

Odds are, if you see me this summer,  I will be rocking the two-piece,  So, grab your Phenergan B%TCH#S, big momma is hitting the Oakhill Pool and Racquet Club, muffin top and all!!!!

Let's Talk About How Fat I Was After I Had a Baby

I'm back!!!! Its your favorite (or not so favorite) blogger, back at it again. Why the break, you ask? It was really not on purpose. My kids are just making it their life mission to never let me do anything I enjoy ever again. For example...Sleeping, Eating, Sitting Down, Etc. So you can see how blogging might have been out of the question. My 7 month old has also entered the "I'm going to lose my sh*t every time you put me down" phase. Judging by my previous experience with this with baby number one, this will last probably another 9-12 months. By the end of it, I will have awesome arms, but not really awesome any other part of my body. This brings me to my next topic...

Let's talk about how fat I was after I had a baby.

So before some of you generally irritating people get all offended at the term "fat," let me tell you what my definition is

Fat: (phAT):     Being in a state of chunkiness that is far beyond what your body was cut out for.

So smaller people can be fat, larger people can be not fat. Its a relative term. If you are still offended, please file your complaints to the complaint department at 1-800-KISS-MY-A$$.

SO seriously, after I had baby number 2, I was not looking so hot. There was about 10lbs that refused to come off with my previous methods of eating whatever I wanted and not exercising. Don't hate me, but with my first baby, the weight literally just fell off. Granted, I spent the better part of 9 months, heaving into toilets all across the southeastern United States. I only put on 23lbs with that pregnancy. So afterward, within about 10 days it was gone. Now, I'm not saying that I looked the same by any measure. Lot of skin flapping around that didn't belong, but that all important number on the scale was the same. Eventually the skin tightened up some, but honestly never all the way. Still, I made it out pretty good considering.

Pregnancy number two- I was sick, but not quite as sick. So less barfing along with having to care for a toddler while pregnant, led to some less than desirable life choices. So this time I put on 30lbs. Still within the "normal" weight gain category for pregnancy, but I could totally tell this time some of that was fat and not just baby. It took my scrub pants actually cutting off the circulation in the lower half of my body to make me realize that this time I might have fallen into the "I'm pregnant, so I might as well eat" trap.

This time I came home from the hospital with 15lbs to lose to get back down to my normal. The first couple of days, the number on the scale went down slowly, but mentally I was okay with any number in the downward direction. Then about 3 weeks after I had baby, that number just stuck at 10lbs above my normal weight. This made me incredibly cranky and after a week of looking at the same number on the scale, I decided that it was time to get serious.

I started logging my calories on myfitnesspal and walking 2 miles daily. Believe me, I didn't want to. Actually the first couple weeks of it, I felt homicidal. This was probably a combination of hunger, sleep deprivation, and general fatness that led me to feel this way, but the threat level around this house was at a definite orange. I did start seeing the number come down some, and I was able to get those 10lbs gone, but it took a total of 3 months to do it.  As for the loosy goosy skin issue, well hell, I'm still waiting for that to get better. I'm hoping to go to bed one night and my fairy Godmother will come around and just happen to be a board certified plastic surgeon.  Until then, I guess I will still continue to have a slight muffin top unless I am standing.

I can not believe that I am actually going to post this, but this is me after baby #2:
 2 Days, 9 Days, and Finally 3 Months

Why do I tell you this? Its because it any of you fine ladies are thinking about having a second baby, you just need to be aware that it truly is harder to lose the weight. I guess I just thought that was something that everyone always said. Its not!

So here is the plan ladies. We need to ban together and as a group, make fat and flabby the new sexy. I know it seems ridiculous, but I promise it can be done. Look at the people that somehow tricked us into thinking that "ombre"hair was a style choice and not just being too lazy or poor to touch up your roots. Until that is accomplished, I am going to seriously have to reconsider my swimwear selections this year :)

In my day,  people, this was just called ROOTS

I Don't Clean My House...And I'm Proud of It!

Cats out of the bag...I don't clean my house. Take that statement very literally. I haven't scrubbed a toilet in I don't know when. Before you go thinking that I live in a filth hole, just know that I have a wonderful lady that comes and cleans my house for me once a week. To protect her identity. I'm going to refer to her as "My wife."  You like that???  I've always said I needed a wife.  Who needs to hire someone to cook, clean, and raise my kids when I can just get myself a wife for free. This profound statement ladies, is why in the year 2014, its still officially a mans world.

Why am I so proud of this fact? Its because there was one point in my life that I was embarrassed of it. Multiple reasons were in place for this. The main two were:
A) My mother: Who liked to make comments like, "A housekeeper? So now you are actually so lazy that you can't even clean your own house?"    Thanks Ma!
B) My husband: Who every time I brought it up told me, "We are too poor to hire someone to do what we can do ourselves."

The idea of having someone help me once a week in the cleaning department went from genius to LAZY AND WASTEFUL.  To further back that up, I'm not going to even throw out there that "I didn't have time to clean." I know that I truly did HAVE TIME. I mean, I work alot, but not 24/7. The truth of the matter is....The time I have, I don't want to clean. THERE I SAID IT!

I DON'T WANT TO CLEAN! Its nasty, dirty, hard work that needs done all the time. As soon as you get done cleaning something in my house, a kid, dog, or husband is right behind you to F it up again. So in case you are in the same predicament of really wanting to hire someone to help you clean, but feel like it would be lazy, wasteful, or expensive. I've got some tips on how to get over it!

Give em 2 mins that they can destroy pretty much anything.

1. Realize that its not lazy.
I don't want to gloat, but I'm not lazy. I'm actually a hard worker. I bust my rear end at work. I come straight home, don't ever sit down and start job #2- feeding, bathing, and raising my kids. Just because I don't want to spend the only days I have off work scrubbing toilets and floors doesn't mean I'm lazy. Maybe it's just human nature to prefer not to do hard labor on the few days off that I have a week.

2. Its financially smart
So, my husband will probably crap himself when he reads this one. ( Good thing, he will likely be on the shitter reading my blog on his iPad),  but I consider this a form of subcontracting. It's the same reason that a contractor doesn't single-handedly build, roof, paint, and landscape a new home. Smart business people realize that it makes sense to hire out certain jobs to experts, rather than utilizing your time to do them all yourself.  As a PA, I make a reasonable hourly pay. It takes my housekeeper 3-4 hours to clean my house once a week. I make way more in 4 hours than I pay her to clean. So, financially, I would be crazy not to hire someone. Put that in your excel spreadsheet Josh Bailey and smoke it!

3. She is better at it then me
When I am forced to clean, I do a crap job. I have no excuse for this at all. "My wife" however, is an awesome house cleaner. For Pete's sake, she even cleans under the couch ever week. You could bounce a quarter off the bed when she makes it. She has been cleaning houses for 30 years. She's good at it. My dear husband often gets ill at people who are not good at there jobs. When I tell him he needs to be more patient, he says "You gotta know your strengths." Well I suck at housekeeping, maybe I should stick to stomping out disease.

4. Its not a waste of money
To be honest, I have never been so damn happy to give someone money for a job well done. Thursdays are actually my favorite day of the week, because I know that when I am at work, my sweet little housecleaning fairy comes and makes my house new again. Its the one day a week, I look forward to walking in the door, because I know there is not a giant mess waiting for me on the other side. Is it so wrong that when I open the door and the smell of pledge slaps me in the face that I pee myself, just a little bit?

5. My husband will never really agree it's important
After many year of marriage, I have learned this lesson. Your husband will only think that things are worth money if they are, in fact,  IMPORTANT TO HIM.
Here is his thought process-
1. House cleaning is women's work
2. Tiffany is a woman
3. Tiffany should clean the house
4. I am a man
5. Cleaning the house is not my job
6. Why would I pay someone to clean the house when Tiffany can do it for free?
7. I like to sit an a blind all day a shoot at ducks
8. Its totally reasonable to pay several thousand dollars a year for a duck lease because "its the best place for a blind in the tricounty area"
9. We are too poor to waste money on things that are not important
10. Killing ducks is really important

See what I mean?  Your husband will never put value on things that he does not deem important, so just don't really ask his opinion on the matter.  At one point early in our marriage, he told me that if I wanted someone to clean the house I could take it out of MY money to pay for it. That statement made me want to put my foot up his A$$ crack. It also made me want to fix up a place in the living room that no one even dusted, vacuumed, mopped, or pick up. I was also going to put the cats shit box in that area too, then I was going to tell him he had to stay in that area since I was the only one benefiting from a clean house. Mostly because sometimes I' m just an unsavory b$tch like that!

No fighting ladies...he's all mine!

He has wised up since then.  So take his lead fellas,  a HAPPY WIFE is a HAPPY LIFE!

Surviving a Walmart Tantrum

I am in the beloved Walmart the other day when I witness an all too common occurrence. A momma, close to my age,  was trying to wrestle with her toddler that was in the throws of a stage 4 all-out meltdown. I'm talkin...screamin, crying, wallerin around, full-on tantrum. I've been there. Tripp was actually so bad that there are 3 times I remember leaving a cart full of groceries and just hauling ass out of there. I wanted to march over and help the girl so bad, but I'm sure she was unaware of my celebrity status as "The Medical Momma." In all likelihood, that would have ended up with me being arrested or something. So instead, I thought I would come home and blog about it!

So what do you do when your kid loses it at Walmart?? Lucky for you, I have some tips for you.

1. Prevention is the key.
It is altogether a bad plan to take your children to Walmart to do your actual "grocery shopping." Running in for an item or two, that might be possible, but if you are planning on going for a full on, push your cart down every aisle sort of trip, try like hell to find a babysitter for an hour or so. I understand that this is not possible for some of you. That blows. So moving on to more tips.

2. Use a stroller
Sounds weird, but if you are only going in for small items, I had more luck using a stroller instead of a cart. One reason is, those disgusting carts have about a 97.9% likelihood of a having a faulty or non-existent seat belt. If you can't strap a toddler in, you are pretty much just asking for trouble. Get a stroller hook and use it to hook a shopping basket or a bag to the stroller. Then bask in the glory of having your kid strapped into a device that also includes a cupholder for yourself (SCORE!)

Look who is so happy that mommy has a place for her Sonic Diet Vanilla Coke

3. Bring snacks
The number one reason my kid melts down is hunger. I have no idea why instead of just telling me that he is hungry, he just loses his #%*. I like to call it "low blood sugar Tripp." He's real fun, you should meet him. If you don't have a snack with you, get something from the shelf and open it. Just pay for it at the counter. If any Walmart employee tries to get scrappy with you about it, offer them a swift kick in the A$$.

4. Let them hold something
So I know that you can't buy a toy every time you go to the store. But Osama Jr doesn't know this. Sometimes,  I will let him hold something for awhile until he  A) loses interest or B) Its time to check out. At this point, you have to decide what a peace treaty is worth to you. Sometimes, I pull a fast one and mumble something to him about how the toy has to go take a nap back on the shelf. Sometimes, I decide that $11.99 is totally worth me not having to deal with a cash register freak out. Nevertheless, at least you have bought yourself some time to shop.

5. Never...I repeat..NEVER let them out of the cart!
So at some point, the little snot rocket will convince you that if they can only get out of the cart and walk beside you, they will behave. Well, THEY LIE!!! You do that, and next thing you know, they are playing a little game of hide and seek in the clothing section. Whatever ridiculousness is going on in your shopping cart, at least it is contained.

The one and only time I let him push one of these babies...he tried to mow down a group of elderly ladies in the deli area

6. Know when to fold em... A Walmart tantrum is not the time to prove a point to your kid. Before you start thinking I'm a pushover, hear me out. I am definitely not one to let my kid use me a whipping post, but I'm (wo)MAN enough to fold my cards until we get home. Let them think they won the argument while your shopping. Its not the time to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. If you want to go judge Judy on their a$$, wait until you get home. You are never going to have the upper hand at Walmart, ever. There is too many people watching. The cuteness of your kid is deceptive to strangers. You will always come out looking like the psychopath that forgot to take her happy medicine. 

7. Have a "sh*t is about to get real cue."
This lets the kid know you have moved on from mad, to angry, then over the edge to DMX mode .

"Y'all gonna make me lose my mind, UP IN HERE, UP IN HERE" (you know you are singing it.)

For me, it's the dreaded mom count. "1...2....then I don't know what happens at 3, but neither does Tripp. Apparently, he doesn't want to find out either.  I bet he thinks to himself, "this B can only count to 2 and a half." You CAN NOT over utilize this! It has to be the last straw before you throw the crib midget over your shoulder and get out of dodge.

Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can't prevent the Walmart meltdown. Mentally prepare yourself that at some point your child is going to assume the posture of an overcooked spaghetti noodle when they don't get their way. Just do your best to keep calm and not do anything that might get child services interested in your parenting skills. Eventually they will stop wanting to be seen with you in Walmart period, so there is light at the end of the tunnel! Until then, stand strong and don't to forget to swing by the pharmacy to pick up your Prozac...that stuff really makes life more tolerable. 

I Thought You Were a %$&# When I First Met You!

I have had an ALARMING number of people tell me some version of this phrase about their first impression of me. It's really baffling. I guess no one would ever truly admit they were a snot, but really, I'm not. Not at all actually. So what is it about me that gives people the "she is an unsavory b$tch vibe" right off the bat?

Thinking...Thinking.....Thinking some more....

Okay, I got nothin, but it did make me think about how my first impression of most people is usually wrong. Even the girls that are my BEST friends now, I didn't always start out liking them at first. So here are some of the horrible (and not so horrible) things I thought when I met each one and the surprising things I learned about them.

(Names are going to be withheld, but you b&tches know who you are!)

MOLLY
 I don't even think this one counts, because I have known her so long, I barely remember life before I knew her. She married my cousin. I think I was about 12 when I first met her. I remember being envious of how pretty she was, she seemed so perfect. Fast forward 12 years, I really didn't become great friends with her until about 5 years ago. I remember thinking when we started hanging out that she was just one of those people who always makes you feel like you have been best friends forever. She is a blame friend whore. She's probably got every 30 year old women on this side of the county thinking that they are her best friend. Damn her for being so warm and loving. Sometimes its nice to think that your girlfriends love you and pretty much hate everyone else, but NO CAN DO on that one Molly.

What I love about her: She is the first one of my friends to give me a hug when I need it.  As an adult,  I find that people get stingy with affection for some reason. She is warm, loving, sweet, and affectionate. If she wasn't so pretty, I would swear she was a Labrador Retriever.

ALICE
I met her about 5 years ago through Molly. I spent the first several times we were together pretty much thinking that she hated me. Mostly because she rarely spoke, but when she did it was always very quietly and usually only in earshot of Molly. I wondered, was I not pretty enough, or friendly enough for her?  Did I not dress the right way? Did her and Molly go way back and was their not any room for a new friend in the group? Well what I learned (eventually) is that Alice is very reserved about 95% of the time. In a crowd, she is a listener, NOT a talker.  She also happens to currently be in the running for mom of the year, wife of the century, and probably Sainthood.

What I love about her: There is this little tiny person that lives deep within Alice. We will call her Spicy Ginger. Ging only comes out every once in awhile. Sometimes all it takes is to get her really fired up about something. Sometimes it takes a sample of every single drink off the Jasmine Sushi Restaurant Menu. Whatever the case, its worth hanging around to see.

PENNY
Probably 4 year ago, I got introduced to her because she already knew Molly and Alice (casually.) My very first encounter with her, I was so INTIMIDATED! She would probably laugh at me to hear me say that now, but its true. She was cute, and really trendy. At no point in my life, have I ever been accused of being trendy, which is normally okay until I get thrown together with some cute trendy b%tch, then I start feeling all bad about myself. Actually, because she already knew the other girls, they had things to talk about. They new a lot of the same people. I really couldn't come up with anything to say to her that I felt like she would care about. I mean, who wants to be friends with someone that thinks tennis shoes go with EVERYTHING?  Fast forward...now Penny is one of my best friends. She is funny, smart, and honest. I don't mean that in a bad way either. Everyone needs a friend that is honest enough to tell you the real deal when you ask their opinion.

What I love about her: She can stare a hole right through you if she wants to...why do I love that? Well, lets just say you ever get cross ways with a scrappy B&tch at a bar that for some reason was wearing a referee uniform...your gonna want Penny with you ;)

ELLEN
Around about the same time I met Penny, that damn friend whore Molly brought Ellen out to eat with us. Although, I guess that doesn't count, because Ellen and Molly are sisters.  My first thought was...D@mn, she is loud. The problem with that, is that I am loud. So, I wasn't used to having someone else in the group that was as talkative as me. The more I listened to her, the more I realized that not only was she loud, but she also made me want to get in a straight line, stand still, and mind my manners. Turns out Ms Ellen is a preschool teacher. She is also super fun and an awesome girlfriend! She always tells it like it is and doesn't care who hears here.

What I love about her: She wears her heart on her sleeve. You don't ever have to worry about where you stand with her and I'm way to busy now a days to be busy with friend drama!

TARA
So I met Tara through Ellen. They had been friends for awhile. Tara was actually much younger than most of us and wasn't married yet. My first thoughts of her...."She seems like a sweet girl, but I'm not sure she is going to fit in...or why she would want to?"  Why would a sweet, quite, young, unmarried girl want to be friends with the mom brigade? Well, what I figured out is that Tara is an old soul at heart. In the time I have known her, she has gotten married, had a baby...and basically become another disgruntled member of the "unsavory bitch of the month club."

What I love about her: She is funny. Not in the obvious way, but in a way that I don't even think she means to be. Plus she puts up with us elderly women, so gotta give her props for that!

KYLA
She got invited to go out with our group one night that I was going to be out of town. I was kind of bummed I wasn't going to get to go, but I figured I would make it to the next girls night. After they went out, ALL the other girls couldn't stop talking about how AWESOME Kyla was. Kyla this, Kyla that. I hate to admit it, but I was jealous. They had all went out and had a fabulous time and bonded, WITHOUT ME! So even when you are 30, there is still some of that middle school girl left in you.  So the first time I actually met Kyla myself, I was on the lookout for flaws....ENTER OPERATION...SOMETHINGS GOTTA BE WRONG WITH THIS SKANK, AIN'T NOBODY THAT COOL.  After about 3 minutes, I realize I was so wrong. She is that cool, and fun, and thoughtful, and a hundred other things. About the only bad thing I found about her is that she is Northern as HELL, but even that makes me kinda smile to hear her talk.

What I love about her: She is the ultimate party planner. Actually I am convinced that she walks around with a bag of party games for any occasion that she can set up at a moments notice. (Did someone say, babyfood shower games??)

So there you go. Almost ever one of my homegirls, I didn't exactly have the warm fuzzies over the first time I met them. There is no telling what that thought about me the first time they met me. It probably was something along the lines of "This girl is loud, and opinionated, and unsavory as hell!"  Maybe they still think that about me? Who knows, but all that matter is they love me for it!
Shout out to all you crazy girls. BBC!

Diet Tips From A Fat Girl..... The reasons your not losing weight

Okay before you get all self righteous and say “Oh, don’t be so down on yourself, your not fat.” Here is the deal….in my head, I don’t really think that I am fat. My brain thinks that I am a reasonably medium- sized person. The problem is all the damn mirrors, and the cameras...Sometimes,  I look into a mirror or look at a photo of myself, and wonder who is looking back at me. Where is the tolerably curvy gal I think I am, and who the hell is this chunky b%tch????

Its not just me either. When I go into stores and I have to buy a large (or sometimes an X-Large),  its really hard to feel good about that. You every wonder…..if I am an X-Large, what do truly “large” people wear.  That being said, I have decided that clothing companies are ridiculous. There is no reason I should be made to feel big just because I have some meat on my bones.  Oh…and mirrors,  those are ridiculous too.

I have come up with some diet tips for anyone that is interested. Before you inquire as to why you would want to take tips from someone who openly admits to not being thin, let me clear this up. I am not saying that I actually do any of these things. I’m just saying that I know how to lose weight if I want to. Every day I don’t lose weight,  I like to look at like a conscious choice on my part. You know why I didn't lose a pound this week…BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT TO! That’s right. If I had wanted to lose a pound , I would have done it. You know that’s right, because I have O’Nan blood in me and we O’Nan women do what we want to do J

We O"Nan women do whatever we want!

• . Forget the word diet- its depressing, and I actually get hungry when I say it, so just don’t

•  Think about it like math



Its just an equation really!

•   You burn a certain number of calories in a day based on your activity level, sex, height, weight, and exercise. THERE IS NOT SOME SECRET FORMULA TO LOSING WEIGHT! As long as you don’t eat more than you burn, you will lose.
•    You can calculate your Resting Metabolic Rate online, then add to that the calories you burn from exercise. If you are super anal like I am, you can get a tracker. I personally love my Fitbit Force. It keeps up with a rough estimate of how many calories I burn a day.
• 
  
•   LOG YOUR FOOD!
•  I can not stress this enough. Even if you only do it for a short period of time, I think you must get a feel for how many calories the foods that you eat have in them. You would be totally shocked that some items have so many calories. Like a blizzard from dairy queen can be up to 1200 calories. Hell, that about a days worth of calories for me.
•  First just log the food that you would normally eat without trying to cut back any. I guarantee 99.9% of all people underestimate  the number of calories they actually eat in a day. I would up that number to 100% of people if those people eat out at restaurants at all. Apparently everything made at a restaurant is dipped in sugar and fat before its put on your plate. No wonder its so good!
•     I use the App MyFitnessPal to log my food. There are some other ones out there, but I think this one is pretty good and its Free. (See Josh, not everything I do cost money.) Its so much harder to put food in your mouth when you know you have to log it. Its kind of kills the buzz you get from slamming a fudge round into your piehole!
• 
  
• 
  
• Start slow
• a.       Weight that comes off quickly also comes back on quickly. That being said, the only thing worse an being fat, is being skinny, then getting fat again. So do it slowly. Try to aim to lose only ½ a pound to a pound a week. That way you won’t starve,  and you will see that it is doable.
• 
  
•  Manage your expectations
•  The first 2 weeks suck. No getting around it. You will be hungry, and cranky, and probably not any skinnier. You will want to give up. Schedule yourself a non food related reward for completing the first 2 weeks. Admit to others you are hangry. Its okay, they will understand. If they don't, screw em.
• 
  
• Only weigh once a week
•    Weighing daily makes me homicidal. It fluctuates too much. Pick a day of the week and only weigh that day, first thing in the morning. Log your weight either on paper or in an App like the MyFitnessPal Program. Resist desire to weigh on any other scale, at any other time of the day, or any extra days between weigh-ins. Trust me people, I'm not cut out for jail. 
• 
  
• Exercise
• Let me put a disclaimer on this one…. I really don’t enjoy excercising. I like it just about as much as I like manual labor, sweating, or the Turkey Trots.  The only reason I exercise is so that I can eat more.  I wasn’t cut out to starve.  By exercise, I,  in no way, shape, or form mean running. Running is so cliché. Everyone these days want to slap on some damn Underarmour gear and trot around like they have been doing marathons their whole lives. Then they post it on Facebook for me to feel like the only inadequate chunky non-runner left on the planet. Truth of the matter is, walking can be just as effective and I think it’s a hell of a lot less intimidating.  I will never have those little stickers on the back of my vehicle that say “13.1” or “26.0.”  I might, however, can a custom decal that says, “0…because running flairs up my fat girl asthma, but I can walked like a beast!”
• 
  
• Skip diet pills and supplements
• I’m not saying they don’t work or at least help, but I think that it leads to this mentality that you have to have help to lose weight.  If you start thinking about weight loss as some grand mystery that you are never going to solve without help, it will never become a reality for you.
• Prove to yourself that you can do it if you want to, without any help. I promise it will empower you and make you want to lose weight...just because you can, D@mn IT!

So there you go. You know why I didn’t lose weight today, its because I have an undying love for Mountain Dew and Fudge Rounds. But when I decide I want to lose weight, I know that I can. Who knows, I may stick with adequately chunky though, I’m not much fun when I'm HANGRY!

Snowed in with the Griswolds

Do you ever over-pack for a trip and then get home and realize that you only used 1/8th of the things you had been hauling around for days?.....I do, all the time! So, I decided that this weekend, I was going to turn over a new leaf. I was just going 2 hours away to go out to dinner with my family for my birthday and then to a baptism the next day. How many clothes could you really need for a 30 hour time period?????  Well, self...this was such a bad weekend to try to overcome your obsessive compulsive ways, because we have managed to get snowed in with the Griswolds,  and I am sitting here wondering if hell has finally frozen over. If so, I appear to have made the maiden voyage here.

My big 3-0 b-day was last week, but I had not made the trek back to the homestead to celebrate with my family yet. Mostly this is because with two small kids, I have to pack up half of my house to survive 30 hours somewhere else. Never the less, I maned up and decided to come Saturday to celebrate, since I had to be here Sunday night for my niece's baptism anyway. My husband had to work Saturday morning, so I was on my own to get me and both kids ready and the above mentioned half of the house loaded in the GMC.

Piper thought this would be a great time for her to scream at the top of her lungs for 4 hours, so I spent most of the morning with her strapped to me in baby carrier. This being the case, I decided if I could JUST get my kids ready and loaded, I would just wait until I got to my parents house to shower and get myself presentable. On the 2 hour drive there, we spent about 1/4th of the time on the side of the parkway with me crawling in the back to see if Piper would CALM THE HELL DOWN. Every time I crawled back there, my son would inquire....."But mommy, who is going to drive us?" Touche son, touche. 

After about 3 hours, we finally made it. I got everyone in the house and decided I would grab a shower. I got out of the shower looking like a drowned rat, and realized that some of my extended family had stopped by for a visit. I went on my merry way... poking along... putting my make up on and getting my hair fixed. Apparently I am so dense, that even after most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins had randomly shown up, I still didn't get it that anything was going on.

It wasn't until I was only half dressed, with wet hair, and makeup had been only been applied to one eye that I heard them start singing the "Happy Birthday" song. I mean really, did I just think that they all happened to show up for a visit for sh*ts and giggles???? I am so dumb sometimes. BTW, thanks for the heads up Mom! I understand it was a surprise, but you could have at least let girlfriend get her face on before y'all stared in with the photo ops. On a related note, NO ONE should ever have to see me in skinny jeans without my boots over them. Sorry relatives, send me your therapy bills. 

Minus the bad timing on my part,  it turned out to be a pretty fun party. So,  me and my relatives continued the party train out that night because Gigi agreed to watch my kiddos. Public service announcement, if someone buys you something at a bar that is called a "liquid cocaine" I wouldn't drink it. Under no circumstance whatsoever would I drink 4 of them...just sayin. Also and little word of parenting advice, your children don't care if you got home 5 hours past your normal bedtime, they will in all likelihood still rise and shine at about 5:00AM, so plan your life accordingly.

Now the real fun begins. The snowstorm that was forecasted for Tuesday,  actually decided to make landfall Sunday morning. Normally I would have loaded up my crew and got out of dodge, but I had to stay for my niece's baptism that wasn't supposed to be until Sunday evening. We stuck it out, and by 4:00PM there was at least 2 inches of snow on the ground and only 1 snow plow in the county that appeared to be functional.

Normally my entire immediate family would not consider riding in the same vehicle the 7 miles to town, this was an emergency situation. So all the Griswolds loaded up in the Acadia with fearless Daddy Mike at the helm. My 3 year old had woken from a nap about 30 minutes prior to leaving in a mood that would make Osama Bin Laden look like Shirley "F&cking: Temple. He refused to put on church clothes and told me that no one was allowed to speak to him or look at him. Once I finally wrestled the church duds on him, he slipped and fell on the way out to the car and took a face full of snow. It didn't really cause any major injuries, but REALLY HELPED HIS MOOD.  Yeah....,not really. 

We set off with 3 year old Taliban and hungry 4 month old in the back (Didn't realize it was close to time to feed her until it was too late thanks to Osama.) Bringing up the rear was cranky 6 month pregnant sister and backseat driver extraordinaire Mom. The entire 7 miles, my  sister had anxiety attacks and was practicing some sort of lamaze breathing techniques, and mom announced every car and stop sign she saw in the event that the captain and co-captain didn't have EYEBALLS. "Oh Mike, it's a car, do you see it? There is a stop sign in 3 miles, why aren't you slowing down?"

 We made it through church with only one "I'm going to take you to the bathroom and whip your butt" episode between me and Tripp,  and I think Piper only vomited 2 times ON SOMEONE. Not bad...   Then Momma Karen announces that we have absolutely no toilet paper at the house,  and if anyone plans on wiping their a$$ in the next couple days, we are going to have to go to the store before we venture home. Nothing like waiting to the bottom of the 9th to check your A$$ cleaning supplies. So we caravan over to the store and after much a do, my mother comes out producing 1...I say 1... Four pack of single roll toilet paper. But Shepard of Judea, she bought Charmin Ultra Soft. In a family full of lactose-intolerant cheese addicts, that will last about 4 hours. Mind you, we were all down to our last set of clean underwear. 

The snow kept coming, and 6+ inches later we are stuck at the old homestead. This fine Monday morning so far, I have 

1. Missed work

2. Realized that my 3 year old used his one an only toothbrush to scrub up a cat turd he found on a rug.

3. Almost ran out of baby formula

4. Realized that the only baby food I have left in my bag is prunes (cue the bowel cleanse)

I am currently sitting here listening to my mom and sister scream at each other arguing on whether or not my sister is going to attempt to drive to work. My mom is saying that she is going to go ahead and call the towing company and see if there is just a charge to follow my sister into town to save them the trouble later of locating her. Apparently her punishment for being "an idiot that would drive in a snowstorm" will be that my mom is going to make her ride with the tow truck driver home. My sisters head just spun 360 degrees and I heard her call my mom by her entire God given name.

Moral of this story....never EVER underpack. There are worse things in life than being over prepared. Always anticipate to get snowed in with the Griswolds, if it doesn't happen, just consider that a bonus. More bad weather is being predicted for tomorrow. I've decided that I don't care if it takes a Humvee from the National Guard, I am finding a way back down south today, STAT! 

30 is the new 21....DEAL WITH IT!

So apparently the age of 21 is supposed to be some magical age in which the awesomeness of your life peaks. Well, if that's the case, then life really blows because when I think back on it, 21 was really not all that great.  Sure I could purchase alcohol and get into bars, but really people, all that ever got me in life was a hangover and  a couple of dates with some craptastic boyfriends. 

SO, as I approach my big 3-0 B-day, I've come up with reasons why 30 is so much better than 21. 

Do I look like my awesomeness has peaked.....no people, I get more awesome every DAY!

1. You have stopped giving a crap what people think about you.
Hence this blog. I never would have had enough gumption to write things like this and post them for the entire world (or my mother) to see when I was 21. When you are 21, you still think that everyone in the world will eventually like you if they get to know you. Well, by age 30 you have finally figured out that you are wrong. Some people are just A-holes and will never like you or anything you do. Its fine really, you don't need that many friends anyway.

2. Your friends have stopped moving all over the country

When I was 21, I had a great group of friends. Still love those people very much, however they are now spread all over creation, because we all met in college when we were trying to figure out what we were going to do with our lives. These people now have jobs and spouses that have moved some of them far far away. By the time you are 30, most of your close friends are people that live close to you and are not likely to be picking up and moving soon. There is something to say about no longer being in a "transitional" part of life. 

3. You don't have to worry about dating

Okay I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but these are my reasons why I think 30 rocks. Dating was about 2% fun and about 98% awful! I spent several years in my late teens and early twenties dating bunch of f&ckt@ards. As soon as I started dating my now husband, I realized he was the first non idiot I had ever dated. Needless to say, I went ahead and locked him in for the long haul. When you have spent the last 6 years with a bunch of 8 mile rejects, you know a decent one when you see em.

Sealed the deal:)

4. You actual have a little money

I know money isn't everything, but it sure helps. I was so very poor when I was 21, I couldn't have spent 6 dollars on a mixed drink at a bar even if I wanted to. In fact, every so often my mom would send me $5 dollars in the mail in a card so I could "get myself a treat." Hell, a treat... I got myself 5 nights worth of food from the Wendys $0.99 menu. I might be offensive and uncouth, but damn it,  I'm an industrious little b%tch. I'm glad to be in a point in my life that I no longer clam up and cry up over having to buy a bottle of Tide. (Okay. maybe I still do a little, that sh!t is $14)

5. You have accepted that your body could be alot worse
Your body probably wasn't perfect when you were 21. If it was, I hate you....actually, no I don't. If you were really skinny back then, it is unlikely you had nice boobs that were real...that's a known fact.  So, anyway, by the time you are 30, you probably still don't love you figure, but you have at least accepted that things could be way worse. Mostly because you go to Walmart once a week for a visual reaffirmation of that....enough said. Bodies were not designed to be perfect. How many funerals did you go to and look at the person an think that they were sure looking damn fine????? Morbid I know, but a life well lived does not usually end without some fat and wrinkles to show for it.  Skinny does not always equal sexy. You know what is sexy? CONFIDENCE!!! Also, covering up cellulite is also sexy. I'm not delusion, no one thinks cellulite is sexy, even when you are 30.

6. You no longer fear the unknown
One of my many irrational fears when I was younger was that I would turn 30 and be unmarried, without a good job, and living in a van down by the river. (Maybe we watched a little too much SNL?) So now that 30 has come and gone, I can get over the fear of being that VERY scary age and having nothing to show for it. In the event you are 30, without a life partner and are currently living in a mom-mobile down by the Ohio River, you have probably had time to adjust to the thought of that. The key to life is all about managing your expectations.

This was high quality television

7. Being at home in bed on Saturday night is no longer considered a defeat
ITS A PRIVILEGE!  There is nothing I would like to do more than stay home on the weekend,  never take off my pajamas,  and watch a movie. That's if we could ever actually watch a movie in this house. The last time I tried the movie was 1 hour and 47 mins....It took 3 days to watch it because my child would not stop with his incessant chatter. Nevertheless, I am so much less concerned on whether or not have something fun to do every weekend.

I literally have no idea what this movie was about, and I watched it for 3 days.

8. You don't live in an apartment anymore
From the ages of 18-25, I lived in either a dorm or an apartment. Actually I moved 6 times during those 7 years. For one of those years,  I lived in a room that I am pretty sure was initially meant to be used as a closet.  Apartments suck. White walls, nasty carpet, and a pad of concrete that's 4' x 5' to do all your outside activities. When we finally bought a house, I finally started feeling less like a nomad and more like a VERY POOR MORTGAGE PAYING MEMBER OF SOCIETY.  The American Dream.

So there you have it. Turns out life does not completely blow after the age of 21. 30 is still pretty good. I've got 10 years to think about 40, so I'll keep you posted on that one. So do not pity me,  you young, poor, skinny, little-boobed, single SUM BEACHES.

30 is the new 21, DEAL WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shut the front door...you did what?

There is nothing quite as special as the first time your kid decides to take a crap in the tub. Guarantee that it will happen to you at some point in your life as a parent. Actually, the first time that it happens, you should get your official "I'm an real parent" badge. Its an initiation of sorts, except at the end, there is no frat party and you may never be able to eat milk duds again without gagging a little bit.

He is the cutest little time bomb I have ever seen!

I remember when Tripp did it for the first time, he was about a year old. I was giving him a bath, and I turned my back to get a towel out of the closet to dry him off with. When I turned back around the next few seconds seemed to go in slow motion.

Here is what subconscious me said to actually me.
First- What is that brown stuff floating all in the water?????
Second- Did he have a toy or something that he ripped apart in 3 seconds- what, is he a rabid animal?
Third- Oh, No......It couldn't be.
Fourth- Oh Tripp, how could you?
Fifth- Please tell me that is not a sess pool of shit floating around my kid. 
MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very briefly, (only because it is human nature and not because you are a bad mom) you will try to think of an exit strategy. At my house the rule is "Finders Keepers." That is unless you are Josh.... his personal rule is "Finders Keepers, unless it's him that finds it, then he must think of a creative way to hide it until Tiffany finds it again."   Once you realize that you are indeed the finder of this glorious wastewater, you will quickly move onto acceptance.

Okay self, I have to bathtub full of shit and a one year old that is sitting in it marinating.  Choke down the vomit and lets get down to BID-NES.  Once I have reached the acceptance stage,  I pull myself together and start operation DEFCON SHAT.

First and foremost- remove tiny human from the sewage. You will be distracted by all the poop floating around, but don't make any attempt to clean it yet. Turn on the shower and hold up Sir Poop-A-Lot like Simba on The Lion King. Use the shower to remove any solid poo from tiny human. As quickly as possible, move the above mentioned child to another bathroom or sink if necessary. Defunk your kid first, the bathtub can wait, believe me...no many how many times you close your eyes and wish that it would just go away, IT WILL STILL BE THERE.

At this point, see if you can get your partner to at least take care of rebathing the kid.
#1- The little turd (no pun intended) is unlikely to poo again, so partner gets one poo free bath duty
#2  Also, the other option is for you to clean up the baby and your spouse to take bathroom clean up duty.NOT GONNA HAPPEN MY FRIENDS. 

Now you have two options for the bathroom:
#1 You can burn it down

or

#2 You can man up and throw on your HAZMAT suit and get to work.

Mom, why the long face, I'm having lots of fun`

Assuming you have picked option 2- you will need bleach spray, lots of bleach.  This is not a job for 409 or Scrubbing Bubbles. We are talking about turds hanging out in your spa, you are gonna want to pull out the big guns. Unless its one big floater- you have to drain the water first. With any luck, some of it will go down the drain to NeverNever Land.  Next, the solid must be collected.  I got nothing for you on this one, anyway you do it, it will be disgusting. I would recommend a peppermint or something in your mouth to keep you from gagging and puking, mostly because at this point you would be forced to clean up your own vomit along with the turd festival already going on in the tub. Lastly, I would use multiple rounds of bleach-soaking of the tub to ensure eradication of the feces.

Anyway you spin it, it's gonna be a nasty job. Just suck it up, and get it done ASAP. I have found the longer it takes you, the more time you spend looking at the disaster and the more likely you are to have flashbacks later in life. Your kids will never appreciate all the disgusting things you do for them, but that's okay because being a mom is all guts, no glory.

I am taking a stand...MOMMY GUILT BE GONE!

Other than the occasional white lie, (No Josh, I didn't realize I drank the last cold Mt Dew we had....) I'm not much of a liar. I also don't cheat, break the law, spit, sweat, or do anything else unpleasant.
 Okay, I curse...just a little :)  Point of this story is that I have not spent a whole lot of my life feeling guilty about anything.


Then...I had kids. I don't know what it is about growing a tiny human in your uterus that flips some magical guilt switch in your body, but I have felt guilty for more things in the last 3 years I have had kids than in the 26 years before that,  COMBINED.

Look at her, probably thinking about how if I loved her enough I would hold her
 instead of making her sit in this bumbo seat

Actually it started in utero. If you are like me, you probably spent the better part of 9 months trying to choke down your own vomit instead of taking any good meds for nausea, in fear of hurting your baby. Then once you go into labor, you go back and forth in your head about getting an epidural, because you don't want to "drug" your baby. Well people, much like a colonoscopy, some things are best done under twilight sedation. I would dare say coming through the birth canal warrants some good drugs. After that, there is the immediate breastfeeding dilemma. There were various nipple Nazis that made me feel like giving my child Similac for ONE night-time feeding was the equivalent of a bottle full of antifreeze. The list just goes on and on.

I think you may spend the rest of your life feeling guilty about something in reference to your kids. If you go back to work, you will feel like dog doo for leaving your 6 week old infant with a sitter, or worse (GASP!) a daycare! If you stay at home, you will likely feel guilty at some point that they have not had enough exposure to other kids. How about, on Saturdays when you are actually home,  and instead of spending every minute playing with them you do something horrific like watch an episode of Vampire Dairies on Netflix. I bet when your child thinks back on his or her childhood, you will certainly only be remembered as a TV watching vegetable that could have stood to lose about 10 pounds. (When I get home from work to be with my kids, I then feel guilty that I didn't find a way to go to the gym to help get rid of the aforementioned 10 pounds of fat on my a$$ and stomach- Thanks baby #2!)

For some reason I have this complex, if I am not at work, I feel like I need to be home with my kids. So from the minute I get off, I feel immediately guilty until I get home with them. So although it would be so much easier to leave Tripp at daycare for an extra 30 minutes while I grocery shop, I never do. I don't know why I think that the minute I leave work he knows I am off and just haven't came and got him yet. I have this awful visual where he spends every minute that I am "off work" and not at the daycare thinking about what a CRAPTASTIC unloving mother I am. The truth of the matter is that he is so busy playing at daycare that he probably wouldn't notice if I waited 2 hours after work to pick him up. Sometimes when I get there for Pete's sake, he is "not ready to leave!" I think, that's just great, because I have just ran over 4 pedestrians trying to get here because I thought you were probably looking out the window wishing for a mommy that loved you enough to pick you up  before 5:30.


I don't even want to talk about the guilt trip if you have to leave your baby overnight at some point. I have a friend that had to be readmitted to the hospital for a couple of nights postpartum because of high blood pressure and a wound infection,  and she is convinced that this has permanently scared her baby. I really hate it for her that she managed to screw up her kid in the first 3 days of being a parent. Oh well, maybe next time! I hope one of these days the baby doesn't remember that for 48 hours you needed IV antibiotics, because I am sure she will likely spend the rest of her life in counselling for "abandonment issues." (I'm talking to you Torey, love ya!) The real deal is that my friend is an awesome mom, and sweet baby Caroline got to spend a few nights with her Dad and Grandma that love and cherish her very much. She will never remember it!

Here a typical day for me.....
Go to Walmart....feel guilty because I should be spending time with my kids.
Stay home with them...feel guilty I did not go to Walmart and plan for more nutritious meals.
No food in the house...End up feeding them a smorgasbord of hostess donettes and Lays potato chips for supper. 
Kids don't learn to eat healthy.....feel guilty because its my job to give them nutritious food choices. Imagine all the trouble they are going to have finding clothes for obese individuals because of the poor eating habits I have managed to instill in them.
Decide to take a stand and ask 3 year old to eat two bites of sweet potatoes... ends up in a screaming match and 3 year old is sent to bed without supper.
Feel guilty because I know 3 year old is hungry.... end up letting him have a sleeve of chips ahoy cookies for a bedtime snack.
 Should have just gone to Walmart for an hour after work....INSTEAD, you just spent the last 4 hours on a trip down guilty lane.

Now does he look like he cares that its 5:15 and I haven't picked him up yet?

The truth of the matter is that you really don't have to feel guilty about not being with your kids 24/7. It takes a village to raise a child, and its good for them to have time away from you. Sometimes I have to remind myself that they need alone time with their Dad too. So,  maybe instead of feeling guilty for getting my hair cut on Saturday, I should treat it like an opportunity to let the kids bond with their Dad.
I also don't think they have the sense of time that we do as adults. Hell, most of them can't even tell time. Hours probably seem like minutes when you are playing with toys and crapping yourself at daycare.


So I propose that we all band together and make a vow to GET OVER THE MOMMY GUILT! No judgmental witchy super moms allowed up in here. We are all a species I like to call "human mommies."
We make mistakes, we need time alone, we make bad choices,  and we occasionally hide in a closet to eat a Little Debbie Cake so we don't have to share it with our kids.

My son wanted me to wear his noise cancelling headphones....I might have kept them on for awhile. Don't judge me!