The Biggest Loser: Couples

After admiring our large waists in the mirror for way too long, JB and I have decided to do our own version of The Biggest Loser.

We will be competing against each other for the next 30 days to see who can drop the most pounds. In 30 days we leave for our Tennessee vacation and Austin and Lauren's wedding, so this seems like a reasonable cut off date.

The winner will get a prize of his/her choice (within a certain price range). We are still mulling over our respective prizes...

I am excited about this but nervous. I'd like to lose weight, and will be happy for JB if he does, but guys seem to be able to lose weight much more easily. So he could feasibly win, no matter how hard I try. And I've already been trying for a couple of months now and I weigh the same. Boo.

Each week we will post pounds lost so you can see how we do. I did some math and determined our percentage overweight that we are, according to the charts:

April: 30%
JB: 37%

Agh!!!

But that’s only if we want to be freakishly skinny. Seriously, the ideal weight for me is less than what I weighed in high school (which was 155). And you know I was crazy skinny in high school when a classmate’s kooky (but nice!) grandma said to me after my first year in college, “Well you’ve filled out quite nicely!” A while later I realized that she meant that I finally had some meat on my bones and looked a little more womanly.

And JB’s ideal weight is also a bit extreme, too.

So I recalculated with what MY ideal weight for us is. And our overweight percentage is:

April: 17.5%
JB: 23%

This is a bit more reasonable. Sooo…here we go! Tuesdays are weigh-in days. Wish us luck!

Dog Wrangling

We're dog wrangling this weekend.

Olivia is thrilled.










(And not the least bit scared that the dogs are playing Wrestle Mania on her blanket.)

Lost Season 5 Finale Tonight!!

Hit and Run

Krystal called me last Thursday to casually inform me that I was her emergency contact person. Random, I know. It was finals week and she had just finished taking her exams. Now all she had to do was finish up her work week at the school cafeteria, and then pack her things and say goodbye to her beautiful Yakeley-Gilchrist dorm room located on MSU's beautiful old North Campus.

Talking to K this time of year always makes me nostalgic for MSU. Spring at MSU is one of my favorite memories. If you've never been to MSU's campus in the Spring, you're missing out. The campus is laden with trees in full bloom: cherry and apple blossoms, dogwood, magnolia. There are flowering bushes everywhere and more tulips than you could throw a stick at. Students are all out on the grass, studying or playing frisbee, and sharing the lawn with the squirrels and ducks.

Here are some shots from my days there. They don't look very nice because I scanned old photos with my flatbed scanner, instead of having the negatives professionally scanned (I totally missed these when I did a big negative scan a few years ago. Bummer!). But you get the point.

A few short hours after Krystal and I spoke, she calls me again, in tears. She had been riding her bike on MSU's campus when she was hit by a big old green van. A big old green van that KEPT ON GOING after it took my sister down. I was so pissed. She filed a police report but she didn't get the license plate because she was too busy getting whiplash and a concussion, so the police didn't hold out any hope for catching the a-hole.

Krystal said that three other people were around when this happened. Two didn't even stop (you're lucky I wasn't there, JERKS!). One girl asked Krystal if she was all right, and she was in so much shock that she said that she was, and the girl left. After sitting on the sidewalk for a few minutes she realized what had happened and called the police.


She felt pretty beat up but thought she was okay, so she went to work. A few hours later she had a massive headache and got worried. When she called me I suggested that she lay down for a few hours to see how she feels.

"What if I have a brain aneurism?!??" she cried. She was starting to get worked up.

"What?" I said.

"I don't want to end up like Natasha Richardson!!" Now she was really crying.

Who the heck is Natasha Richardson? I wondered. I know that K has a friend named Natasha, but I didn't think she had head problems...

Krystal explained that Natasha Richardson was Liam Neeson's wife who recently died from a brain aneurism after a skiing accident.

Oh, THAT lady. I'm sooo not a celebrity follower. I'm proud of that.


After talking her down, Krystal decided to go to the emergency room. She had been freaked out about making Mom and Dad angry by running up their medical bills, as K has had several trips to the doctor or ER this year. Mom reassured her that if she was hurt, she needed to get checked out. That's life.

So she did. And she is okay, despite the whiplash, concussion, and hurt knee and elbow.

Krystal and I found it ironic that just a few hours before her accident she had put me as her emergency contact, and then an emergency happened.

I am really steamed that the van driver didn't stop after he hit K. She is hurt, and her cool vintage bike is probably totalled (though she wants to see if Dad, the fix-it man, can resurrect it).

Sadly for K, Spring at MSU probably won't have the same whistful, bird-chirping, lovely garden, sunshiny feeling as it does for me. Poor girl...

Baby Photo Shoot

(One of several posts covering the last few days.)

The last few days have been a whirlwind. I went home to Mayville to help put on Melissa's baby shower and then we had Mother's Day at our house today. And before I left for Mayville I was hurriedly getting my Mother's Day preparations together. One of the things that I had planned was to take some new photos of Olivia for her grandmothers. Originally, I was going to take her to Sears for portraits since I got a coupon in the mail. I got all excited about this because I am not a good formal portrait photographer myself. But after I went online and looked at their backgrounds, etc., I was not impressed. It just seemed cheesy or something. This perplexes me because I've seen other kids' portrait photos and they don't strike me as cheesy. I also didn't care for JC Penney's set ups, either. ???

So I decided that a trip to Meijer Gardens was in order. Because we were quite busy, the earliest I could get over there was Thursday, which turned out to be a hot, sunny day. I took Olivia in the baby carrier instead of her stroller which turned out to be a bad idea because she is HEAVY, I had to carry my big camera and camera bag, and the gardens cover a HUGE area. Also, because she was in the carrier, she didn't have a good sun shield. Which I didn't consider until AFTER we arrived at the gardens. Fortunately I always carry her sunhat around. But the only arm covering I had was her hoodie, which combined with her outfit, made for quite a warm little girl that made my front side a bit sweaty.

We didn't arrive until around 3:00 because I was waiting for Olivia to take a nap so that she'd be in her best mood for the photos.

She never took a nap.

She wasn't in a good mood.

I got a good first shot which enthused all her Grandmas:



But it went downhill immediately thereafter, with shots that looked like this:



People that walked by would say things like, "Look, how cute!" or "Look at her getting her photo taken!" or "Oh, how fun!" Were they not looking at my child's face? She was crying and and frowning and wanting it to be over. I am quite surprised that no one came up to me and said, "Do you really think you should be doing this? It looks like you're torturing your child." Perhaps these people had been in my shoes before and understood. Fortunately, I had taken some winners earlier in the week so all was well. She's looking more and more like JB:

Quilt 2009

So I can FINALLY tell y'all what I've been doing for the past four months! Since January Marian and I have been furiously working on a quilt for Austin and Lauren's wedding. I don't know how many hours we spent deciding on a pattern, creating the layout and measurements, picking out fabric, washing and ironing fabric, cutting, and then finally assembling the quilt. We pieced the quilt, which means we put it together, but we hired a woman to quilt it, which is the part where you sew the top, the batting, and the back together. We don't have a special machine and it would have taken us way too long to quilt it ourselves.

The quilt has the Ohio Star block in it. We used a bunch of Marian's fabric scraps, which she said included a lot of fabric that used to be Aunt Helen's (recognize anything, Aunt Helen?). We also bought some fabric that we wanted featured, including a "Go Green, Go White" print, some horse/riding prints, a snowman one, and some Civil War reproduction fabric, since Lauren is from Tennessee. I LOVE that Civil War fabric and want to buy a bunch more for myself.

It was a load of fun to make it. We wanted to see them open their gift and figured the days around the wedding would be a little too hectic. Well, and basically, we were tired of waiting. :) So we gave it to them Friday night when they were in town.

Loony Lu Lu

Lucy is a Looney Tune. Since bringing Olivia home her temperament seemed to changed for the better, but lately she's been up to her old antics again, so perhaps she was just in hibernation mode for the winter.

On Wednesday I leaned down to give her puppy pets when at the same time I smelled and saw death. Streaked down her puppy fur. Where the heck did she find a dead animal? I wondered. She had only been cruising around our very small yard, and I would have noticed a dead animal there.

Nonetheless, I marched her downstairs to the tub and a bit of Drama Clean shampoo. Generally after a bath Lucy will run into the living room to dry off (after I have thoroughly towel dried her--apparently this is not good enough for her). She'll do these running dives onto her side and then wiggle back and forth on her back in an attempt to rub off the water. It's quite a loud ordeal, as she dives into the floor with great zeal.

This time, however, I guess she wanted to try air drying instead. This consisted of running wildly around the house, throwing herself into the ground at regular intervals, and then racing into another room. Downstairs, upstairs, downstairs, back upstairs again, round and round. Leaping onto furniture only to leap back off--a sort of Lucy-style hairdryer, I suppose.

Did I mention that Olivia had JUST fallen asleep?

So this lunatic dog is wreaking all sorts of havoc and I don't really want to yell at her because that, too, could wake up the baby.

Instead, I ignore her and pick up a can of WD-40 and spray the squeaky hinges in our side door. The squeaking had gotten quite out of control, though JB claims he never noticed it.

When Lucy sees me at the door she gets really excited and stops her flying dog antics. She instead jumps up and down excitedly at the door, thinking I'm going to let her back out. That I'm going to let her back out, as a wet dog, to roll into the death again.

In order to oil the hinges on the door, though, I have to open and close it several times. Each time I open, Lucy braces herself, muscles tense, waiting for me to give her the "release" command.

As I open the door I look at her. She's ready. Her muscles are about to jump out of her skin. She sees me open my mouth, words start to come out. Her muscles leap into action because the only plausible thing I could be saying at this point is, "Free." In the split second her body starts to move toward the door she hears, "Sit!"

Agh!

So she starts to run backwards to sit down. Then I change my mind because her sitting there will be in the way so I decide to also say, "Go back upstairs!" This further confuses the dog, and we get into this little dance of me saying, "Sit! Stay! Go upstairs!" while opening and closing the door several times, and her little doggie body trying to respond, while at the same time trying to sneak outside before I holler another command. It was quite exasperating, but it seemed to help her dry off.

So we get to an understanding. Lucy is sitting by the door, not going out, no matter how many times I open that door. Then I slip outside to look at the hinges from that angle and she bolts out right after me.

Devil dog!

Devil clean dog with damp fur ready to absorb dead animal guts!

Yes, Olivia is still asleep, and her bedroom is at the back of the house and she will probably hear me yelling, but I have to do it anyway.

Lucy races to the garage, her latest hangout, as there is a chipmunk that lives in the garage walls that is constantly vexing Lucy by hiding in them right as she's about to catch him. But she hears me yell her name and she turns around.

It's a doggie vs. master standoff. Her legs are spread, ready to run, I can see her little heart pounding at the exileration from escaping. She's watching me, waiting for me to falter. I stare her down. I say to her in a low voice, "Lucy! Come!"

She stares back, considering the distance between her and I. There is enough space, she decides. Without breaking eye contact, she drops one shoulder to the dirty cement, and then defiantly ROLLS INTO THE DIRT.

I race after her. "Lucy, NO! STOP!" As I reach the garage she runs around the car, now thinking that we're playing a game of chase. Eventually she bolts to the backyard, to the freshly laid, wet wood chips that JB put down last night (and where, I later realized, the dead animal remains must be).

Lucy is ready to roll and I'm ready to murder.

I guess I must have gotten my Dog Whisperer voice right because when I say, "Sit!" she does, and waits for me to scoop her up. Fortunately she did not get that dirty from rolling in the garage floor, so she did not need another bath.

Thinking that all is well, I let her shoot off into the house. She quietly disappears somewhere and I'm left with a few moments of peace to finish the project that I'm working on for Austin and Lauren's wedding present. Marian and I have put our heart and soul into this gift, and I was doing my final part, which involved writing something very neatly and beautifully in fancy script. I had written this thing out several times, trying to get it just right. I had finished what I thought was the final draft and went looking for it. I had asked JB to proofread it for me before I made it official, so I went to our bedroom to find where he laid it.

Lucy was already in our bedroom, perched on the very edge of our bed, looking out the window, on "Squirrel Patrol." She was perched on the edge of the bed, right where JB had left my beautifully written project.

And Olivia is sleeping in the room next door so I really shouldn't be screaming right now.

But really, dog, COME ON!

Fortunately for her, before JB left for work he said that I should redo the writing with a different font, so Lucy had not wrecked anything.

It is also fortunate that she loves my sleeping baby, and happily plays with her and lets Olivia pet her. So I will keep Lucy and not kill her. For now.

Decision 2009

Okay, folks, I've got a poll for you.

Here are the rules:

1.) Pick your fav dress (if you have one) for me to wear, based on the following criteria.
2.) Be honest. If I look fat in one, say it. If I look ugly in all of them, say it. If I look hot in all of them and should keep them all, tell JB that we need a bigger dress budget.

The following dresses are possibilities for me to wear to Austin and Lauren's wedding on June 27, in Nashville, at 5:00. An eveningish wedding on a hot day. JB is the best man so will be sporting a tux. I want to look nice next to him. Two of them I got at Macy's and the other is what I wore in my sister's wedding. I would remove the pink sash and do some other sashy thing instead.

Tropical Bird

Olivia turned 6 months old on Saturday, so here is an update.

1.) Olivia is JB's child, as she loves watching TV. Every day for 30 minutes she learns about "World Animals" on her Baby Einstein DVD. One of the animals she learns about is Tropical Bird. The way the little boy says "Tropical Bird" (three times during the video) gets stuck in my head. Instead of a song playing over and over again in my mind, I hear, "Tropical BIRD!" I've also started to call her Tropical Bird instead of just Bird. Then it gets shortened to Tropical a lot. "Hey Tropical!" I'll say. "Wanna play with your toys?" Or, "Tropical, you're really flying in that Johnny Jump Up!" Sometimes I wonder if she knows her REAL name, as I don't use it very often in the course of a day. Fortunately others in her life, like grandparents and JB, call her Olivia.

2.) She eats big girl food and drinks from a big girl cup (well, "medium girl" cup, as it is a sippy, though she can do a real cup with assistance).

3.) She sits up on her own for long periods of time.

4.) She often prefers dog toys to her own, and gets upset when I take them away. The other day I heard her breathing heavily while she was laying on her mat and knew she was trying to get at something out of reach. Then she started making very happy sounds and I looked over to see that she had scorned the sea of toys on her mat in favor of Lucy's squeaky ball. And it wasn't enough to simply hold and admire said toy. No, she had to TASTE IT. A LOT. (Similarly, Lucy prefers baby toys [especially Moby Dick] to her own. She is constantly testing me to see what I'll do if she gingerly puts her mouth around a baby toy. A few times she has tried to hide the toys to see if I notice. I'm guessing that if I do not, she will consider it license to eat.)

5.) She is waaay more fun than when she was a newborn. Pregnancy is really a yearlong endeavor, if you ask me, because the first three months a baby is here is more work than fun.

Tree Rats

Spring is HERE people! At least for a few days. Last weekend JB raked the yard of leftover oak leaves and now we can see bits of green peeking out all over our garden. The sad thing is that there are still oak leaves left on the ground (only about a few, but annoying all the same) and even more still in the trees. Never willingly grow an oak in your yard! I picked so many acorns out of our garden that I started to wish that they could be sold on the black market. A nickel an acorn would make JB and I set for life. A friend suggested we spray paint them gold or something and sell them to Michael's as a craft item. Sadly, I don't even think Michael's would want our acorns. And apparently the squirrel army that has amassed in our backyard can't even absorb them fast enough.

They are quite the fat and happy bunch, as they have acorns for life, plenty of tree branches to play in, and a dog that merely chases them away, but never catches them.

I've watched fierce old Lucy lately. She's wicked fast. Fast enough to catch just about any squirrel. So why hasn't she? She's a scaredy cat! She will shoot off after those tree rats like a rocket, and once she's close enough to bite them, she literally hits her doggie breaks (the mulch in our gardens spraying into the air) and lets them get away. Or she'll run past them and circle back, pretending that she was too fast for her own furry good, unfortunately causing her to squander her chance at a squirrel sandwich.

Whatever, Lucy. You don't fool me. And I don't think you fool the squirrels, either.

Those squirrels are even luckier that they don't live in the country around here. Rural squirrels are lean and sinewy, but these city dudes are plump and juicy looking. And after a recent Meijer trip (the Cascade Meijer, again, mind you!) I'm thinking these guys wouldn't make it very long beyond the safe confines of our nutty backyard.

JB, Olivia and I were making our way down the checkout lane a few weeks ago when Olivia started to get fussy. JB pushed the baby in the cart to the end of the lane to pick up our groceries as they got bagged and to try to pacify Olivia. I was chatting with the clerk, a woman with short blond hair who seemed to be in her 40's. She chuckled as she scanned the giant plush squirrel that we were getting for Lucy, which we needed to replace the smaller squirrel that Lucy had removed the legs of. Old squirrel couldn't really put up a fight without any legs so JB and I agreed that it was time to let him go to the big oak tree in the sky. But Lucy wouldn't let us get away with that until we offered a replacement.

JB sees the clerk with the toy and hears me say something to her. Then she says, "....we cut the tails off and our dogs LOVE it!"

"Huh?" JB wondered. "Why would you buy a plush squirrel and just chop the tail off for your dogs? Wouldn't they choke on it?" (This is paraphrased, but as JB is downstairs right now, I'm giving you the general idea.)

Then he hears, "Our cats and our dogs, it's like catnip to them!"

He finishes bagging our groceries, I pay, and we leave. Later that night I said to him,

"Did you hear that the checkout lady was saying to me today?"

"Sort of..."

I told him the story and he cracked up.

After the woman scanned the stuffed squirrel, she laughed, and I said, "I know, it's a weird toy, but our dog loves it."

"No, I'm just laughing because it makes me think of our dogs. See I'm from the country, and out there--now this may sound weird to you--but out there we kill squirrels and eat them. So what we do is when we get a squirrel we cut the tail off and give it to our animals. Our cats and our dogs, it's like catnip to them! It's got that real gamey smell. And when they shake it, you know, it shimmers. They go crazy for them." Her eyes lit up as she told me. Watching dogs and cats fight over a squirrel tail must be quite entertaining. Actually, I'll admit that I'd probably get a kick out of it. While being disturbed at the same time.

I laughed. Then I wondered what "country" she was from, and why she was working in the CASCADE Meijer and not the Lowell or Ionia one. She's quite lucky that she had that conversation with ME, a girl from another hickville. And while I do not identify myself with squirrel eaters, I respect a person hunting for his meal. Well, I think I draw the line at rodents, but whatever. I just hope she doesn't open up like that to everyone, because people could complain and she'd have to hunt twice as many squirrels to make ends meat. Too bad shooting guns in the city is illegal, because if she stepped into my backyard, she could have a squirrely hayday.

And a few hours later, apparently so would her cats and dogs.