Hot hotty hot

Anyone watching The Biggest Loser finale? They're not even on the top 4 yet; they're just showing the eliminated contestants--and I'm BLOWN AWAY. As I write this, Brian is in first among this group--and may I say, he is freakin' HOT. (He was the Grizzly Jack-looking guy, with the huge beard and heart of gold.) However, Marty is in close 2nd place (for hotness; that's all I'm worried about right now, LOL. I'm having my own little competition over here).

I hope he wins the "eliminated people" weigh-in. He was SUCH a sweetheart on the show. Everyone just ADORED him. He always reminded me of Missy and Nikki's Uncle Brad.

Gimpy's home!

She came home yesterday. She's off the morphine so she's much easier to have a conversation with now. She's basically "back to normal" (have yourself a little giggle here--or a sarcastic snort, whatever) but is realizing, as she said, "the little things you take for granted." It takes her a lot longer to do EVERYTHING now, of course.

That's about all. I have my kids making her cards for extra credit (it's the last week of the semester so I figured I'd throw them an easy one; usually my extra credits involve a lot of writing and/or research--well, except for the Growing Pains theme song thing). One girl went all out and made her a really impressive pop-up card. I told her she's getting quadruple-extra-credit.

You'd better watch out, you'd better not cry....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU6NrOR63VE&eurl=

(You may not want little eyes to see this one, unless they know that Mall Santa isn't the REAL Santa.)

Soundtrack of my life

I know you guys did this before but I just got a new iPod so now I'm finally able to play along.

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie

Opening Credits:
Nothing to Lose - Josh Gracin

Waking Up:
You Raise Me Up - Josh Grobin (LOL)

First Day of School:
Love Hurts -the Cher version

Falling In Love:
Wasting Time - Kid Rock (hell yeah it's been a waste of time so far)

Being In Love:
Seasons of Love - Rent (ooh good one)

Fight Song:
Strong Enough - Cher (I shit you not)

Breaking up:
Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi

Prom:
How to Save a Life - The Fray

Life:
It's My Life - Bon Jovi (no, SERIOUSLY)

Mental Breakdown:
Irreplaceable - Beyonce (hahhahaha--see, God is reminding me that no man is worth the drama and heartache)

Driving:
My Kind of Girl - Colin Raye (huh?)

Flashback:
You Give Love a Bad Name - Bon Jovi (shut up, they're my favorite band. I have like a billion of their songs on my iPod)

Getting Back together:
Walkaway Joe - Trisha Yearwood (holy crap)

Wedding:First, I got How to Save a Life, but I figured repeats don't count so I did it again and got To Be With You- Mr. Big

Birth of Child:
Broken Road - Rascal Flatts (THAT one gave me CHILLS)

Final Battle:
La Vie Bohiemme- Rent (I know I spelled it wrong but I'm too lazy to look it up)

Death Scene:
Runaway - Bon Jovi (who else? LOL)

Funeral Song:
You'll Accomp'ny Me - Bob Seger

End Credits:
The Longest Time - Billy Joel

Never a dull moment

My cell phone was on vibrate all morning, so I didn't realize it was blowing up until I remembered to check my messages around 1 pm. When I saw that I had 10 missed calls from my sister, I knew SOMETHING was going on.

Turns out, my mother (known as Deb on the blog, hereafter referred to as Gimpy) fell last night and broke her leg in two places (right below the knee and above the ankle). She got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and due to a blood pressure medicine that she WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING, she apparently blacked out and fell. Thank GOD my stepdad was home (he usually works nights and he was actually supposed to be at work last night, but then the overtime got cancelled at the last minute) because Gimpy was absolutely unable to move. They had to call the ambulance and everything. (On a side note, Missy actually heard the call go out over the scanner at work last night, but she got a phone call before she heard the address. All she caught was the "55-year-old woman fell from a standing position" part. She later told me that it caught her attention because most of the "fall calls" are usually REALLY old people, like 80, and she remembered thinking, "Wow, that's kind of young--they must have been drunk or something." Nope, not drunk--just our mother).

Gimpy went into surgery this afternoon; everything went fine and she should be back home either Sunday or Monday. I'll be flying into Michigan next Saturday for my Christmas break, so I'll be there to keep an eye on the old girl and make sure she's not taking any unauthorized meds, etc. I'll also be helping with a great deal of the Christmas shopping, cooking (aka, heating up her Lean Cuisine and ordering the pizza), and other various tasks, because she's not supposed to be on her feet very much over the next couple of weeks. (That's about as long as they expect Gimpy to be out of work.)

So, all things considered, we're pretty lucky and it could have been a lot worse. Of course, this shoots my plan of laying on the couch and eating bon-bons for 2 weeks all to shit, but hey--you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.

I draw the line and helping her shower and pee, though. She's on her own there.

UPDATE: I just called the hospital (6:15) and talked to my stepdad. Gimpy's still pretty out of it, but she knew I was on the phone. I'll call back tonight, but I don't expect she'll be much of a conversationalist till tomorrow.

I'm a fitness ma-cheen

I was just b*tchin' to Missy the other night how I'm up about 9 lbs from my low point last winter, and how I can't seem to get the scale to go down no matter what I do. I'm eating the same as I was, working out the same--what the hell?

Then I realized: when I first started to lose weight, exercising 30 minutes, 4 (or so) times a week was a big change for me, so of course it had a major effect on my body. The problem is, I've been doing that for over a year now. As a result, I'm in much better shape than I was back then (AND I'm getting healthier overall; shit, I ate VEGETABLES at lunch the other day. PEAS, even), and that same exercise routine just isn't cutting it for the lean-and-mean me. So now, clearly, I have to step it up.

Dammit.

For now, I'll increase it to 40 minutes at a time and see what that does. I'm also going to stop eating the school lunch (teachers get to eat free, so I figured, sure, why not?); unfortunately, school lunches these days are FAAARRR from healthy. Seriously. The "entree" is almost always fried; if we get fruit it's usually canned and swimming in fruit syrup; and the vegetables--well, I think the nutrional value has been processed right out of them. I am willing to bet that if I make the workout changes and replace the school lunch with a Lean Cuisine, I'll see some pretty decent results right there.

Of course, I should probably stop buying bulk candy at Costco, too (but COME ON--**30** FULL-SIZE candy bars for $10?! They're practically GIVING it away!). And, hmm, I bet all the drinking I've been doing since beginning my teaching career hasn't helped, either--but screw that, the drinking's staying.

So: here we go again.

Starting weight: 149 (I can still fit into all my size 8 clothes so it's not TOO bad yet, but I better get it under control before strangers start asking me when the baby's due)
Inches: I'm too damn lazy to get up and get the tape measure, but I think my waist was about a 31

Good noggin news (relatively speaking)

I had a follow-up with my regular doctor today (the one who called last week with the preliminary MRI results). I dragged some info out of him about this whole "spots on the brain" situation (he REALLY didn't want to say much, but I told him I was gonna worry anyway, and I'd rather know what I COULD be looking at rather than wildly speculating).

Anyway, the good news is that he's pretty sure it isn't cancer, tumors or anything else really, really scary and life-threatening like that. So that in itself is a huge load lifted off my shoulders, because in my scariest moments I've been thinking about death and cancer and having to shave my head (which, for me, ranks right up there with the whole dying thing). I told him to give me worst-case scenario so I knew what I might be dealing with and he said it could be MS. (On a humorous side note, I said, "Aren't I kind of young for that?" and he goes, "No, not really.")

I've been researching MS and I do have some rather concerning signs and symptoms (especially the damage to the optic nerve and the MRI thing), but you know what, you can pick almost ANY malady, look it up and convince yourself that you "have all the symptoms." However, I've come to accept the fact that it's a possibility--and I actually feel okay about it. If THAT'S worst case, then it's not the most horrible news. I can think of lots of stuff that would have been WAY worse. And, hopefully, my life wouldn't change very much for quite a while. (Other than a new family rule that "MS patients get more shit at Christmas"--I think THAT should be implemented immediately.)

So...I can actually sleep a bit easier now. If it turns out to be MS, then at least I've had some time to research it, get educated and come to terms with it. And if it's NOT--then hey, anything else is very, very good news.

Have you ever...

...shaved with the plastic protective cover thingie still on the blade, and then when you were done felt your legs and been like, "Dude, this razor sucks" ?

Or is it just me?

Weird Al can rap, yo

Have you heard "White & Nerdy" (a parody of Chamillionaire's "Ridin' ") yet? The video is funny as hell and the lyrics are, once again, brilliant. But the most enteraining part of this song (in my opinion) is discovering that Weird Al is actually a hell of a rapper. Yes, seriously. "Amish Paradise" was just the tip of the iceburg.

Here's a link for the video (the actual link is off to the right, under his picture):

http://rap.about.com/od/hiphopvideos/v/WhiteandNerdy.htm

Or just the lyrics:

http://rap.about.com/od/lyrics/a/WeirdAlLyrics.htm

Can't I just be, like, the cool older sister?

Last night, after an evening of socializing with the other teachers, I swung upstairs to see what my new friends from last weekend were up to. One of the girls just found out that she's pregnant and has decided, in the words of Miranda from Sex and the City, that she "need not be."

"Well," I said after she told me what she had decided to do, "if there's anything I can do, please let me know. You know I'm right downstairs if you need anything."

"Ooooh, I love you," she said as she threw her arms around me. "It's so, like, awesome how you look out for us. You're like our mom--"

and then she must have noticed the look on my face--

--"slash-best-friend," she finished.

Now come on. This is one of the younger girls--18, I believe. If you work the numbers, it is downright unlikely that I'd be old enough to be her mother, if not physically IMPOSSIBLE. I mean, I would have been like *12* when she was born. And that's getting a REALLY early start.

Even for THIS family.

On my board today

Oh, The Weather Outside is Frightful...

Winter is here! I'm actually welcoming it with open arms. It felt weird to put up Christmas decorations last Saturday when it was 65º. NOW "it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas..."
After the hype all day yesterday about getting a foot by this morning, John was extremely disappointed when we went to bed at 11 last night with no signs of snow. I woke up at 6:30 this morning to the foot we were promised, plus some, I think. Brent is beside himself with joy and there's no school today because of it. Can life get any better for a kid? The first snow day of the year!


Brent practically rolled John out of bed this morning so they could go out and snowblow and shovel before John goes to work.














You can't really tell in the pictures, but there's about 14" in our driveway!









The whole idea of shoveling is great, but what boy can resist diving in the snow and pummeling the neighbor kids with snow balls? The snow is heavy and wet; perfect for a snowball fight! Brent is in the red.

Happy Winter to all!