good lord....

So....

my girls wake me around 7:45 this morning. I know that I have lots on my agenda today, so I get up and put on a different shirt with my pajama pants. We have nothing in the house for breakfast, so I figure the girls and I will go grab something and then go food shopping. I gather all the Sunday editions of the paper that have been collecting on my balcony for the last month (I only subscribed to get the coupons - that I never use) and i spend about a half hour going through about 2 months worth of coupons, put them in a baggie in no type of order, and pile the kids into the station wagon, cuz i'm cool like that...that's how I roll.

So we venture to the Dunkin Donuts, and proceed to completely take it over, but they know us well, so they have my coffee and my bagel ready, and the kids have finally decided what they want...so we order and we sit down, and then utensils start to fall on the floor and so we have to get more, and then Maura realizes that her hands are sticky and that she needs a wet paper towel and proceeds to pour water from my water bottle onto the pile of napkins sitting on the table. I'm hold hot coffee, and trying to stop her, I spill scalding hot coffee on my leg. I stay calm. I clean up. We are finally finshed with breakfast, and we leave. I should have taken them home at this point.

I should have taken them home.

So we get to the supermarket at around 9. I'm stoked because it's still early and because it's Saturday morning, and so the supermarket is still a little quiet..at least for the next hour or so. i get a great parking space, and we all go into the store together and then it starts. Anyone with children that are old enough to talk and recognize labels know exactly what I mean by this. I want to strangle every advertiser who thought it would be cute to put Dora on a box of ANYTHING, and every one of the people that make all the artificial preservative full CRAP that "EVERYONE else ALWAYS has in thier lunch EVERY day.." Excuse me for caring about the long term health and well being of my kids!!!!

So my children are running up and down and up and down the aisles and I'm trying to shop and they are asking for everything, and Maura is trying the apples and Ana is begging for some sort of cereal made from Recees cups and Maura is fighting over kinds of yogurt because the one kind has Dora on it and Ana needs glitter pens for school and Maura really wants a toy and Ana would buy it for her if she had the money, but she can't find her money, and will i spot her some money becuase she is sure that somewhere she has lost $18, and she really needs construction paper and new crayons because all the other ones are broken, and Maura's life isn't complete without the Elmo juices and we HAVE to have the string cheese, and why can't we get the cookie dough with the jackolanterns on it for halloween, since it's so close, and look at the cute coupon dispensers that we have to stand in front of and pull every coupon out of until they no longer spit coupons and then never understand why I don't need the little gummy fruity things, because I have 5000 coupons now, and how I can't get the spaghetti sauce that says this on it, because the coupon is too specific, and then my cell phone rings, and it's my friend in GA who is about to have a baby, so I'm talking to her and then Maura has to go to the bathroom - which in a grocery store is always 200x worse than even the most disgusting gas station bathroom - so i make Ana stand with the cart, and i'm on the cell phone and lining a toilet seat with toilet paper, and I keep getting a beep on my phone because hubby thinks that I just don't hear the phone, and I get done with the bathroom and fight to get hands washed - PLEASE - and then I get off the phone and try to talk Maura into the riding in the cart, and she stands up and puts her arms around my neck while my hands are full and jumps out of the cart and lands flat on her tailbone on the hard floor and starts to scream and then I finally get done, and of course there are only 4 checkouts open - and 2 of them are for 15 items or less, and all 4 have lines at least 5 people deep.....so I get in line and am bagging groceries,

and I ask the checkout lady if they have valium...and she says yes they do, in the pharmacy, but you have to have a prescription....

and I'm thinkng that at this point, I could convince any doctor in the land.

and I finally get home, and get groceries put away, and discover that mice have gotten into my tea and my dried beans, so I have to throw it all away and clean out the cupboard and rearrange things..

and I find myself looking at the clock...trying to decide if it's too early to open that bottle of wine I put in the fridge last night to chill...

it's not even noon, people.

beginning the 4th week...

10.6 down.

it's getting easier.

week one

7 lb down.

93 to go.

FAGE total 0% Greek Yogurt is delicious.

Trader Joe's rocks.

Thank you and have a great week.

i'm going do it...

I'm going to Weight Watchers tomorrow. Sean and Megan have collectively lost about 300lb.

No time like the present.

here goes nothing.

go cliff.....

whenever I think of Cliff I am taken back to a certain transaction in my life between the two of us. I think he was a freshman, and I was a junior...at any rate, i knew he was destined for greatness.

go cliff....

Someone said that “Sympathy and offering condolences is what people do to cross the indifferent chasm of not giving one rats ass about someone being dead.”

And though I understand why the person said that and where it comes from, I disagree with that statement. Sympathy and offering condolences is what people do when they feel that there is nothing else that they can do. Offering sympathy for me is not an attempt to pretend to know how you feel, nor is it me thinking I can help you feel better in any way. My words are not “nothing.” Others’ words may be, but mine are sincere.

It sucks that your friend died, and I feel badly for you because it must absolutely suck to lose your oldest friend. I tell you I’m sorry because I am. I care about you, your feelings, and your well-being. You are one of my dearest friends, and I love you very much, and I am honestly sorry that your friend died and there is nothing that anyone can do. I won't feel bad for 15 minutes and put it on you. You are already a person who I think about almost daily....I know that you have emotions and that they are different and ugly and messed up, but that doesn’t mean that words of sympathy and condolences offered mean nothing to the people they are coming from.

I am not going to tell you about how I hated him. I didn’t know him well. I liked him. I liked his cocky attitude and opinions. I liked his conspiracy theories and unique sense of humor. I liked that he spoke his mind, even when everyone else in the room disagreed. I like that he didn’t give a damn. To say that he didn’t leave anything meaningful is bullshit. The fact that you have things to write about him show that he left behind something meaningful, however minute it may be.

We will all die with things left to be done, and things we wanted to do. Even the ones who do everything will die with things left undone, sights left unseen. Death is never on someone’s calendar. Death is never in the plans or in the works. Even death expected is shocking. It’s all part of the conspiracy theory of life.

We may be irrelevant in the big picture, but we are not irrelevant to each other. People forget people who are still alive..what’s the difference in forgetting the dead? The difference is that the dead are not forgotten as easily because of the realization that there is no chance of ever being in contact with them ever again.

He would have called us idiots, because that was his way. It doesn’t mean we are.