Life's too short....

....to carefully fold fitted sheets into the same sized bundle as a flat sheet.

I'm taking J to the zoo with his cousins instead.

Dieting

I have never dieted before. Ever. I recently joined Ben in a diet experiment. My mom and her husband have had good success with the South Beach diet. So we tried it.

After the first week of phase one, Ben was down 3 pounds. I was up the same 3. So the second week, Ben stuck to the diet and I did what I wanted - which, since I was at a conference in Portland, involved pupusas, sopes, Lebanese food, beef chow mein, and curry over rice. (Note the preponderance of rice and cornmeal there)

He continued to lose, I lost what I had gained.

Conclusion: eliminating sugars was good. I'll keep that. And Ben is happy with what South Beach is doing for him, so he's gonna stick with it a while longer.

Apparently, though, I'm a carb-processing machine. Turns out that by choosing whole foods and grains and generally not eating huge portions (with the occasional exception for corn tortillas and chocolate cake), I feed my body in away that's healthier for it than a diet.

Funny how that works.

Grrrrrrrrr

So apparently Romney thinks that producing a film that mocks Muslims is something that deserves support as being part of "our values"? Grow up, quit using a man's death to further your own agenda, and focus on issues that are actually important...like where to get the money we need to keep ourselves afloat, how to deal with crop shortages and the food prices that will result, and how to keep QUALIFIED teachers in the classroom when all we do is complain about things they can't control. Also, early flight departures are wonderful. Late ones not so much. That's all.

NOT supermom

I'm not.  And never will be.

I see these posts around various social media outlets about oh-how-much moms got done in a day - 12 loads of laundry and dinners frozen for later and errands run.

I just don't operate like that.

And you know what?  I'm glad I don't have to.

I teach two days a week, so those days we're doing pretty well to all get dressed and to our different educational facilities on time and not missing any pieces.

I run errands one Saturday a month, all in one morning.  We don't have a lot of non-grocery errands.  I grocery shop for two weeks at a time, occasionally doing a fill-in trip on the way home from work.

Laundry happens when it  happens.  As often as not, Ben helps me fold over an episode of West Wing, NCIS, or Downton Abbey (whatever the current brain rot we have going is).  He cooks the night that Bee has ballet and Thursday - for no good reason other than I'm tired after doing my work week.

He lets me sleep in on Saturday because I love and need the extra hour and he loves and needs the time with the kids that he doesn't get because of his five-day work week.

I will never be able to post a "look how productiveI was with homemaking today"post, because that's just not how my life works.  And frankly, I'm not all that impressed with myself for simply making my own life choices work for our family.

We do what we do, because we've chosen for our life to look like it does.

And I'm okay with that.  It works for us.

Paul Ryan's sub-three marathon

I was skeptical but almost impressed when I heard Ryan's claim.

Now I'm just proud of myself for being skeptical......and the fact that I could keep pace with the man.

Which, given that he's a man, makes his marathon bragging all that less impressive.

Several runner-types have mentioned that runners din't lie about their times.  My experience is consistent with this....people know what they run and they don't lie about it.  Or stretch the truth.  Or forget after years and years (I, for example, still remember my best times in each of my high school events 20:18 5k, 5:57 1600m and 2:29.8 800m....and I graduated 14 years ago).

So maybe the lesson learned is to not brag about things that you don't do any more, particularly about something whose adherents/participants are quick to call "liar, liar, pants on fire" when the situation calls for it.