A Novermber (Not) to Remember

I am quite proud of myself because this month I knocked myself out and paid $2000 worth of one-time only and unexpected bills that HAD to be paid this month or else. Can I also say I am exhausted! The last bills are due today and I am about to go out and make the calls to get them taken care of. HOORAY! I feel so much better today, in spite of the fact I have been going on 4 or 5 hours of sleep all week.

And, I never thought I'd say this:

I am soooo sick of coffee!

This week at St. Brigid's

So we went back to a normal (for us) routine at the beginning of the week. This involves morning quiet time, morning play time, reading Alice in Wonderland at the breakfast table (a tradition we started in pre-school and both have always loved) and then on to lessons. This weeks lessons included:

• The Bible story of Samuel
• Grammar & Handwriting (nouns and proper names.)
  
• Memory work (From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson and a bit of Shakespeare)
• Math (addition facts)
• Story Time (Greek Myths and Legends)
  

They made an Advent Calender out of Reece's Peanut Butter cups for Library Reading Club.

Super Ted says at Cub Scouts they did some bullshit repetition of stuff Kiddo already did at Day Camp.

We skipped ice skating this week because kiddo has a horrible cough.

Our art project was making cloth "wrapping paper" for Christmas. We also baked some yummy pumpkin bread. Service Learning was helping out at the local Main Street committee.

No lessons yesterday or today because kiddo's cough medicine knocks him out. He is going to Grandma's today to have dinner with her and her friends, and hopefully his cough will be sufficiently under control for him to go to hockey tomorrow.

I am resigning myself to not getting a bunch of actual lessons done this coming month, because we will be doing a lot of crafts and kitchen gifts for the holidays. Super Ted and Kiddo will be doing a bunch of decorating. Of course, I will need to start preparing the Christmas Eve dinner, and there will be a bunch of parties to go to. It's all good.

Where did my son learn to talk like this?

Wednesday in Service Learning Day here at St. Brigid's. We help out with the Main Strerrt program in our town. This week, the lady who is in charge of it took Kiddo with her to help sell some raffle tickets. Kiddo was a bit confused about the concept of a raffle. He wanted so hard to understand it.

Kiddo: How much is the raffle?
Me: Tickets cost $25 each.
Kiddo: But how much is the raffle?
Me: Twenty-five dollars. That's how much it costs to buy a ticket.
Kiddo: No, no, no. I'm not asking about the tickets, I'm asking about the actual price of the raffle, itself.

Where does such a little kid learn to use such grown-up words, in such long and complete sentences? Maybe he hangs out with me too much?

This week at St. Brigid's

I am starting a new feature here on my blog. Every week or so, I will be writing what we did this week. It will make a nice record of stuff I can't keep in a portfolio.

This week was a little weird because it was a short week.

Monday: We did our normal lessons. This means that we read our chapter book (Alice in Wonderland) during breakfast, then we did some grammar, memory work, math, and I think reading of ancient myths. Kiddo wanted to make hand turkeys, so that was art. Super Ted took Kiddo to the library reading club, where they read a story together and finished their cookbooks that they started last time. Each kid told a recipe for a thanksgiving food and drew a picture, and the library lady had them all made into a little book. So cute!

Tuesday: Kiddo wanted Play-Doh for morning playtime. He played with it for over an hour and was still having a good time with it, so I just let him keep playing. He played with it all morning and I actually had to force him to put it away so we could leave for our field trip. There was supposed to be a special exhibit on animal habitats at the Children's Museum, but it was junky. So we just hung out at the museum and goofed off. I meant to take him on a short nature walk after the museum closed, but I didn't take into account how early it gets dark. Oh, well. We came home and had supper, then I took him to 4-H. He's in the Cloverbuds, which is like a little-kid version of 4-H. I got to taking to the leader, and it turns out that she has no idea what she is meant to be doing. She just has the kids color or make a little craft each time they meet. Shoot. I can have him color at home. They are meant to be doing projects that build character and so forth. So I am going to volunteer to be his Cloverbud leader.

Wednesday: Wednedsay was service-learning day. Our little town is part of the Main Street program, which is meant to help re-vitalize little towns that are having problems. I volunteer with them and serve on the Economic Revitalization Committee. Wednesday we did a mailing, sending 300 fliers to people who live out of town and have expressed an interest in our town, to tell them about the Christmas program. Kiddo worked with focused attention (more or less) for 3 hours. I am so incredibly proud of him.

Friday: Today we had another learning-by-living experience. Kiddo has been planning a "Train Festival" for a couple of months. It was supposed to be a day for him to get all his friends over here to play trains all day. Unfortunately, most of the people he invited couldn't make it, but it turned out to be a fun day anyway. His 3 cousins came over and they had a wonderful time playing all afternoon. This was Kiddo's first experience in planning a party. He had to help with cleaning the house and getting ready. Then he had to greet his guests when they got here, entertain them, and be sure to say goodbye appropriately and thank everyone for coming. We had a little issue because I had told him before the party that the kids were to remain in his two rooms, and not to go into my exercise room or the bedroom. Well, the first time I heard noises coming form the exercise room, I went upstairs and found the kids swinging on my stripper pole. I had told Kiddo earlier that I did not want them using the pole because it is dangerous. So I had to chase the kids out of there. Later on, I could hear them up there again and found they had been in my exercise room AND the bedroom, and Kiddo was JUMPING ON MY BED. They had gotten out all my exercise DVDs and tossed them all over the floor, without the cases. They all got a stern talking-to. I made certain to impress upon Kiddo that we have boundaries, and as the host of his party, he is responsible for making sure that his guests follow the rules of the house. All in all, he was a fairly gracious host, and the party went well overall.

So that is our week in home schooling. Next week we will return to a more regular schedule.

My blog is R-rated!

Check this out:

I found this little jem here: http://www.justsayhi.com/bb/blog_rating. Another little piece if internet nitwit silliness.

Also got this:


$4715.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

and there are some more stupid things on that same site.

I am wasting time this way cuz I am also participating in Buy Nothing Day. Actaully, I just don't have any money cuz it was a hellish week at work, otherwise Super Ted would be racing through Target with a shopping cart. But now I can make it sound noble. I will, however, be ordering a pizza cuz my kid is having his cousins over for a "Train Festival" in which he will display every train he wons, and the kids will play with all of them. So we will be ordering some pizza. . . . oh well.

Sometimes life imitates the Simpsons.

In between a somewhat disappointing trip to the children's museum (am I the only one who notices the stuff is falling apart?) and running to 4-H (Where I will now be volunteering as a leader of my son's Cloverbud group), I made a quick supper and sat down to watch the Simpsons with Kiddo and Super Ted.

This was the episode where Marge and Homer go on a tour of wine country, and Marge starts drinking as much as Homer. In the course of it, Homer does something Really awful to Marge. He sits in the local bar where the bartender, Moe, asks him some variation of "Why the long face?" This is what happens next:

Moe: You can tell me. I've heard everything.

Homer whispers in Moe's ear.

Moe: That's awful! That's the most horrible thing I ever heard! You . . . why, you deserve to drink watered-down beer out of a chipped mug, while sitting on a stool with a big sharp nail sticking straight up!

Moe now smacks Homer's mug on the edge of the bar--chipping the entire rim-- then pours a cup of water into Homer's half-finished beer. He relocates Homer one stool over onto a stool with a big pointy nail sticking out of it.

Homer: Can I have some peanuts?

Moe: OK, but I get to poke you with this sharp stick (which he produces from under the bar).

Moe resumes the classic position of a bartender, leaning with one elbow on the bar, bar rag in hand, all the while poking away at Homer with his stick.

Moe: (poke, poke, poke) So, did ya see the game last night? (Poke, poke)

Now, that was possibly the funniest thing I have EVER seen on the Simpsons. Everybody I told that to at work last night (Yes, I went after 4-H) thought it was mildly amusing, except the bartender, who laughed so hard she almost wet herself!

See, you have to realize that the the part of this conversation in dark blue is the part that is really happening, and the part in lavender is what is going on inside the bartender's head. We who work in bars totally GET IT and love it. I have, many times, had to listen to a conversation where they guy is telling me how he beat up his kids, cheated on his wife, extorted his company's money, and stole food from starving orphans, while I smile and nod and say, Wow! what an interesting life you've had. Let's go have that dance now.

Now on to work. There were few customers and many dancers, which means, once you land a seat next to a potential customer, you stay there. To get up prematurely means you risk losing your only chance for a sale in the immediate future, and furthermore you will wind up staring at the fish tank or the silent TV, with no one to talk to. So I sat with one cheap idiot who had tipped me a dollar for a 5-minute massage ( I gave it back to him), a mooncalf who was about to go on house arrest for the second time, and this third knucklehead who started talking about how he had shot his dog.

THe whole story is, the guy had been divorced and was by his own admission sleeping with any slut that would have him. The dog had a habit of waking up the women in the middle of the night and scaring them away. Well, the dog took a liking to this one woman, and allowed the woman to stay in the house. Eventually this knucklehead married the (slut) woman, on the dog's recommendation. Eventually the (slut) woman reverted to the behavior that got her in the guy's bed in the first place, and started sleeping with the guy's boss. So this asshole shoots the dog.

I feel ya, Moe.

Happy Turkey Day!

Hand turkeys inspired by "Setting the Turkeys Free."

Why do I do this to myself?

Anybody ever hear of a stripper with a weight problem?

Probably not. We save all that griping and whining for our super-secret stripper website. We want you, the "outside world" to believe we are all perfect, beautiful, adorable Barbies (OK, in my case, Midge) every single second of our lives. It's part of the "stripper mystique." I mean, I have customers who KNOW I home school, who KNOW we do weekly nature hikes in all weather, who KNOW digging in the garden is a regular pastime for me, and who probably still THINK I do all this in full make-up and 6-inch Lucite heels.

That is why I don't give my customers this URL. It that is what they like to think, then that is what I want them to think. Give the people what they want, yanno?

But check this out . . . . I DO have a weight problem. Not just a few baby pounds that won't go away. Not just a little flab that won't tone up. I mean, I have a real, life-long issue with my weight. It goes back to grade school and having to buy dresses and uniforms in "chubbies" sizes. I was teased incessantly about my weight. No doubt, I was kind of a rotund kid, but I was NOT as grotesque as my peers made me out to be.

Anyway, fast forward 30 or so years. I was tiny and slender in the Army and afterward. I was a lingerie model (Not the Victoria's secret kind, just a girl in a bar selling lingerie and raffle tickets, but still) I was even kind of famous, for about 15 minutes. (See picture, right.) But I got in the habit of just not eating (who has the time?) and when, and age 29, I decided to get out of the entertainment biz, I really just let myself go. I ate all the stuff I had been denying myself, and as much of it as I wanted. Having ruined my metabolism by subsisting on bagels and Diet Coke, I gained at least 40 lbs in 2 years. I gained another 60 during my pregnancy. (Whoa! I just realized what I said. 100 lbs in 3 years! Yikes!)

Well, I got back into the sex-entertainment biz in August when my son was 3. Nursing him and walking around with him in a sling had helped me a lot with my weight. Also, I had just done a half-marathon for Team in Training (To raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) so I was feeling pretty good about myself. But, I gained weight that winter and this begins the current chapter in my battle with myself.

First I spent more than two years trying to figure out how to loose 20 pounds. I am not kidding. I tried everything I could think of. I finally hit on the south Beach diet last January (Courtesy of my stripper friends) and lost 15 lbs. Then I gained back 8 of that on the vacation from hell last summer. I struggled and floundered until I went to the same doctor who did my stop-smoking hypnosis 2 years ago, and had the weight-loss hypnosis. Then I lost 10 more pounds.

Now here comes the hard part. These last 10 lbs really show. You may know from your own experiences, when you have a lot of weight to loose, at first it seems like nothing is happening. Then you feel a little bit lighter, and then--ta-da! --there is an actual difference.

Well, these last 10 pounds made that difference. Now when I look in the mirror, I see a different person. I have lost 2 pants sizes. I have a waist and hips and ribs, where I once had just an expanse of torso. Of course my boobs have shrunk, but then so has the band of fat that used to go from them to a point under my arm. My clothes fit better. My face features more cheekbone and less jowl. I feel better and fitter and I feel like a normal-sized person now. Life is better.

I am not where I want to be yet. I want to be at my Army weight (150) but my friends have half-convinced me that, if 150 was a good weight for me 15 years ago and pre-baby, then 155 might be more appropriate for me now. So I still have either 13 or 18 lbs left to loose, depending on where I want it to end. But here is the sick part: I have stopped trying.

I don't know exactly why I stopped trying, which is the bitch of it. I wake up every morning with good intentions. I know what I have to do. It's not hard, or complicated. I just don't do it. I no longer tell the bartender to mix me virgin drinks. I don't pass up the ubiquitous bits of fudge on the gas-station shelves. I don't opt for black coffee. Little by little, I have given up almost every new, good habit that helped me lose the weight wanted to lose, and gone back to the antithesis of those habits, the poor habits that packed on 40 extra pounds to begin with.

I know when I am doing the wrong things, but I don't really care. I rationalize. I tell myself,"I'll have this piece of fudge, and then I will be back on the wagon." or "I'll have one or two drinks, then I'll tell the bartender to cut me off." Or I tell myself I need the chocolate, like its some kind of medicine.

Right now, I should be working out. Am I?

I have noticed something else abut me, too. (One of the gifts of having had a dissociative disorder is, I am actually a pretty fair observer of myself. I can look at myself as if I am looking at another person.) When I started losing the "weight that matters", I stopped caring about other aspects of my appearance. I stopped caring for my hair, for instance, and I stopped taking care of my skin. I mean, I still showered daily and removed my makeup, but that is about it. I have been doing the bare minimum. I stared sneaking bites of my kiddo's baked goods, like cookies and donuts, even though I know for a fact that even a few bites of such things gives me serious acne lesions. I quit bothering with night cream, acne meds, and even sunscreen. It's been 5 weeks since I had my nails done.

The very feakish thing about all this, is that when I look in the mirror, at first I see a very pretty woman. Then I look again and I start saying things like this: "Well, you'd be pretty IF you'd quit eating things that make you break out, and IF you'd drink more tea and less coffee, and IF you'd lose those last few pounds, and IF you'd get your hair permed and your nails done . . . My God, girl, at LEAST get a haircut . . . . " and on and on.

It's as if I just can't stand to see myself looking good. I criticize myself and sabotage myself.

What is UP with that?

Wonder

Fourmother tagged me with this meme. I feel honored to get it, as I have not gotten an award in a long time, and never one for my blog! Kisses to you, Fourmother.

I had to think a bit about this before I could write about it. Today was the first day in a week I actually managed to get up at 6 so I could write, and ta-da! the ideas for this entry were already in my head. I can't make any references to the TV show at all, because I don't believe I was allowed to watch it. I had to look on Wikipedia to find out about the golden bracelets and the lasso of truth and so on.

But what I can do is talk about the sense of wonder I try to cultivate in myself and my kiddo. Super Ted has caught the spirit of this, too, which is wonderful. (Oops! no pun intended!) We love looking at little things in nature and discovering how amazing they are. The endless variety of ways the sky can look with clouds of various types, shapes and number. . . . the way ladybugs know they are safe in our house . . . an aging, one-eyes mouse in the park district green house that was patient enough to let my son watch him nose around among the plants . . . These are all sources of wonder for us.

Along with wonder comes gratitude. I am so thankful for the home I have, my husband and son, and the life we live. I am thankful for my job and my husband's job (not glamorous, but hey, they are better than some). I am also thankful for all the millions of veterans who gave thiner time, their health, their liberty, and their lives so we can live in a nation that supports our rights of free expression and our right to educate our children as we see fit.

Time to pass it on. Here are my personal wonder women:

Heather at Supernatural World, whose blog got me hooked on reading and writing blogs. somehow following a link of hers lead me to The Denim Jumper, an awesome site for secular home schoolers.

Lana at HoboStripper. Lana is an amazing woman, who follows her own unique path. She dances naked, lives in her van, travels everywhere, and lives a life I would like to have in an alternate reality. When I die, I hope I can come back as Lana.

Paris Love, ex-stripper at Stripped Bare. I love that Paris is so honest and well-informed. Actually, I read her blog to keep up on the news.

TRIMAXION. I know her as Maxine from another web site. This is another neato, amazing woman who has had an amazing life. One of my ambitions has been to tour the mid western clubs in the hope of "accidentally" meeting her someday.

Ree at Pioneer Woman. This is another woman whose life I would love to have. She is a serious photographer (serious enough to have had at least one gallery show) and a real life cowgirl living on a cattle ranch. When I get done being Lana,I would like to be Ree.