The "NEW" and improved Crafty's

Mr. Crafty and I decided we have had enough of looking the way we have been for quite a few years. It's time to get healthy for us and for our kids. It's only fair to the entire family. So, this June we decided we would completely change what we eat. We follow a low carb, diabetic diet and yes, we do allow ourselves special treats when we are craving something bad enough. You will never survive any eating plan by completely cutting out food, so we don't. Those cravings are few and far between now, so really, there are no troubles. We eat 90% veggies and then allow ourselves 10% for protein or other foods. Even as people "on the go", we manage to make this work and it takes no effort really. It's about being smart and making smart choices. OK, driving and eating a salad is pretty much impossible, and shoving your face with salad at a red light only makes you look like a cow. My suggestion is to just pull into the parking lot and enjoy your salad, or whatever you are eating. My point is, it is easy and can be done, so no excuses.

If only I could find my motivation to get back on my treadmill. In February, I was starting the couch to 5k program again since I took off the summer before and never got back on. My goal was to run a leg of the Flying Pig Marathon for the first time in my life, but I stepped wrong while on my treadmill and crushed my foot. This kept me in a boot/soft cast from February until June. I gained even more weight while not being able to do anything. I broke 2 bones on the top of my foot, crushed my arch, shattered a plantar plate or something and tore some muscles. It wasn't pretty. Anyway, I started back up a few times since June, but once I start feeling the pressure on my foot, I freak out and take the next day off. This leads to taking the next day off, the next day, the next day. You get the picture. I'm scared. I need to get over it. I miss running...BAD. I enjoyed it so much the first time I started last year (2010). I'll get there, I know I will, I just have to schedule time, it's beyond time to put me first.

Anyway, so far, in 3 months, I have lost 30 pounds and Mr. Crafty has lost 60 lbs. I would love to sneak some sugar into his salads for lunch, it doesn't seem fair. LOL!!!!

I'm so proud of Mr. Crafty. He looks amazing. Until I did these side by side shots (posted below), I couldn't see it anywhere on me. Now I at least see it in my face. The ever so adoring Mr. Crafty says my face now looks long. Uhhh...is that supposed to be a compliment? I've turned into stretch?!?! He absolutely loses sugar free brownie points for that comment.

Here it is, our side by side shots.
Me: Feb 2011 -

Me: August 2011 -

Mr. Crafty (with a less than thrilled Dominic) - Feb 2011

Mr. Crafty - Sept 2011

If airplanes in the night sky...

I'll spare you, I won't sing the song, but it did come to my mind as I was typing this entry. Not that you could hear me if I did sing it.

If you know me, my family, you know about Joey. You know that the sweet looking 7 year old is really the devil in disguise. You can't let his big and beautiful blue eyes and long dark eye lashes fool you. Not even when he bats them at you. He is hilariously funny, mostly because he has no idea he is so funny. He is smart, way too smart for being 7. Loves to build and take things apart so he can put them back together. He fixes things for me, like my broken dishwasher. Joey is honest, or, I should say, brutally honest. His honesty is so bad that when we are in public and he opens his mouth, we all cringe and hold our breath afraid of what he is going to say. He has never been into sports, just trains and now Star Wars. I mean, just a few month back he saw a baby picture of himself holding a football and he said "Awww, is that me with a basketball". *Sigh* There went my dreams of having a quarterback for a son.

Imagine my surprise on the last day of 1st grade, when he brought me a paper about football saying he wanted to sign up. He was so excited. I jumped on it. I wasn't about to let him even take a second to think about what he just said. I jumped on the computer and signed him up within 5 seconds of him saying he wanted to play. He never has touched a football, much less watched a game. I didn't care, this was MY dream. He was signed up and for his uniform #, we picked #7...you know, after John Elway (Denver Broncos).

He has been playing for about a month now. And he is still just as clueless as he was the first day of practice. I watched my dreams shatter right before my eyes. It's ok though, he is having a blast. How do I know he is? Well, it is obvious when you watch him at practice. Especially when they warm up. One warm up is to run the length of the field and back. As all the kids are busting their butts to get back to the coach, there is Joey, dead last, twirling as he runs and has his arms straight out pointing to either side like an airplane as he makes the noise of "Brrrrrooooomm" with every twirl he does. Parents crack up and I am in tears laughing. The coaches? They aren't too fond of him. Another way to tell, last night the coaches gave him the ball and it was his job to run into another kid who was told to tackle him. I thought this was fabulous because he is scared to death of being tackled. He believes his head is going to pop off. So, this kid is coming full speed at Joey and what did he do? Threw the ball at the kid and took off running like a little bitch in the opposite direction. Oh, the howls coming from the parents. Again, I almost died laughing. Watching the 4 grown, very big coaches turn around to not face him and see them cracking up was also priceless. However, being the coach and needing to correct him, he gets in Joey's face and yells at him and tells him to do it again and don't throw the ball. He told Joey if he dropped the ball, he had to run the hill. The kids hate the hill. I don't blame them one bit. Second try...Joey runs down the side, and starts up the middle. He sees the kid coming at him and hides behind the coach's legs and yells "neener neener neener". He never dropped the ball. It's sort of frustrating, but at the same time, so incredibly hilarious because if you know Joey, it's 100% something only he would do.

So, twice a week and every Saturday morning, I get to watch my dreams slip away and pray that Dominic does much better when he is old enough to play. LOL!!!

Oh no I di-int!

Do you remember your parents saying things to you that would absolutely make your skin crawl? You probably swore that you would never say them when you got older. People probably always told you that you too would one day say the same things to your kids, and you would roll your eyes and think "Great! Another old person who thinks I'm going to be just like my parents!" You stood your ground, you would never say anything so stupid. Parents are old, things today weren't like they were back when your parents were little, right? I mean, the old people who lived my house still had a record player when cassette tapes were the rage. You could hear your parents snicker and catch them winking at each other as you argued you would never say stupid things like they did.

One thing I really hated to hear my Dad say was "You're going to school, not the prom, hurry up and get out of here before you are late". UGH! I'm having flashbacks of that as I type it out. I can hear his voice so clearly in my head. I haven't heard that voice in 15 years and it would be nice...if it was any other saying of his except for that one. I remember slamming my stuff around the minute he would yell that up the steps to me. It made me so mad!

Hailee, our almost 14 year old, was running a little late for school. She likes to get there right at 7 so she can hang out with her friends before the bell at 7:30. She leaves the house at 5 til 7 so she can be there. It was 7:00 on the button and she was still getting ready in her room. Before I had time to even think about what was coming out of my mouth, the words just flew out. "Let's go, Hailee, you're going to school, not the prom!!!!!!!!!!!" I felt the air suck back into my body with force, I felt my eyes squint shut and could feel the muscles in my face tense up right as I said it. Yep, I said it, I actually said it.

I was tempted to rinse my mouth out with soap for that one.

On that note, I'll leave you with my prom picture. Don't laugh at my huge hair...but you can tell how long it would take to get ready, I mean, teasing the hair that high would take at least an hour alone, add in make up and mirror gawking and we're talking almost 2 hours.

Ahhh, young love. This would be Mr. Crafty and I from May 1992. My senior prom.

If there is admission into Heaven...

So, today was the funeral for a friend of mine. A very young friend. Her name was Ashley. She was just 41, the mother of 2 small kids, ages 9 and 5. Kids who were much to young to be without their mother, that's for sure. Ashley was diagnosed in 2009 with Stage IV Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

Every phone call she made started with "Hello beautiful", and if I was having a bad day when she called, that ALWAYS cheered me up. How could it not? If she received bad news from scans and she would call, she still started that call with "Hello beautiful". Truth be told, she was the beautiful one. Inside and out. With the church being standing room only, you can only imagine the impact she had on everyone's lives. There will certainly be a void in our world, but I know that she wouldn't want us to be crying over her. She always told me she admired my sense of humor, so I decided that I wouldn't be too emotional today. I would try to find the positive. It won't be easy when deep down I'm so sad.

As I walked into the visitation, a kind of calm/peace came over me, and I kind of cracked a smile. It was probably the first in a few days for me. I was even able to joke with a good friend that I was shocked the church was still standing after she walked in. If there was one person to get Kristy into a church, it would have been Ashley...that right there is proof enough of the awesome woman she was.

I met Ashley through coupons. Yes, you read that right. LOL! There is actually a group of us who became good friends that way. I met her just a few months before her diagnosis. I'll still never forget when we found out. We met at another friend's house and not wanting to bring attention to her diagnosis, we all wore pink shirts. If you know me, you know how much I hate pink. It's one of my favorite shirts now though...simply because of what it represents. And not that it represents breast cancer, but that it represents us girls coming together for Ashley. That night was crazy, I remember the lost look in her eyes, the numbness in her soul. Yet, sitting next to her on the couch, she grabbed my leg, and said "what's up, beautiful?". That's just how she was.

She was a fighter, that is for sure. She promised to never give up the fight, and she sure didn't. No one expected it to end this way, we thought she was going to be the one miracle patient who beat the odds of Stage IV Inflammatory Breast Cancer. We didn't think it, we expected it, we were sure because of the fight she had in her. She was determined. This wasn't going to beat her.

Unfortunately on August 17th, she lost that battle. And, it doesn't feel right saying she "lost the battle". She gave it everything she had and more. She didn't give up, not even for a second. So, I don't know how to word what happened here. All I know is because of this disease, 2 young kids are without their mother, a Mother and Father had to bury their daughter, people were left behind.

We never did get to work on the scrapbook she wanted desperately to put together with me. I think of that almost every night now. I'd still love to do it, her kids deserve it. She had a story to write, we were just never going to give it an ending. Those were her exact words to me on the phone one day. "I want to write my story, but there will never be an ending because I'm not going anywhere."

But, that's all getting mushy again, and I won't do it today. I'll leave you with this. If there is admission into Heaven, you better believe Ashley has a coupon!!!

Good bye, beautiful, you will be missed by many!

Time flies

Before you know it, that precious, beautiful little baby you were holding in your arms is a teenager. That teenager comes equipt with eye rolls, attitude, lots of laughs and their very own unique style. A style I might not like, but she feels comfortable, so why worry?

Today, another sort of touching day in Church. The youth got up to talk to the congregation about their mission trips they just came back from. The middle schoolers went to one, while the high schoolers went to another. Our oldest is a Middle schooler.

She was standing there with her group of friends, telling stories about the fun they had, the workshops they attended, the crops they worked on, the meditation they did, etc. As she was standing there, playing with her hair and rubbing her nose as she does when she is embarrassed or nervous, I was envisioning our little girl. The one who used to sport her prettiest dress ups, big purple hat, feather boa and the most gorgeous high heels a dollar could get you.

What I was seeing was someone totally different. What I was seeing is my almost grown 13 (soon to be 14) year old, wearing real make up, having her colored hair that is flat ironed, her all black clothing and gawdy gym shoes. I suddenly realized that yep, she is growing up. The MP3 wearing, texting, eye rolling girl is the same little girl who (still) laughs at the goofiest stuff...and can't stop or control the laughter, the same baby girl who wore those dress up outfits to the store. Yep, I was getting teary eyed. It seriously seems like yesterday I was holding her in my arms, now I'm excited when I get a good night kiss from her.

These kids, they've got to stop grown up!

Proof Joey is the devil.

First, let me start this off by stating that I absolutely love my Joey-Joe. He has always been my "rotten child", or as I like to call him, "The one my parents wished on me". He's just as mean and rotten as I was as a child, although he has not beaten anyone up (yet). By the time I was 7, a boy in our neighborhood used to walk around with a bike chain and lock to hit me with if I ever came near him again. Yeah, I was "that kid". I beat him up so much he had to carry protection with him everywhere.

Today, Nic and I were driving around running some errands. I asked him to sing his ABC's for me so that I can assure his preschool teacher he still knows his alphabet. He adores his teacher, Ms. Shannon. Everything he does, he asks if I will tell her in an email. I pretend to email her and he gets very excited to hear how she emails back and is thrilled with his progress. Come on...you've never told those kinds of lies to your kids? LOL!

Today, he decided he was not going to sing his ABC's. There was nothing I could do to get him to do it. Well, I could have bribed him with M&M's, but that's going to extremes when I know he knows his alphabet. So, I told him I would let Ms. Shannon know he forgot his alphabet and she would probably cry.

None of this phased Dominic. He, at 3, is pretty wise. Even at 3 he knows that his older brother must have always been the devil. How do I know this? Because after I told him that Ms. Shannon was going to cry, he looked at me with a very serious face and said "Teachers doesn't have tears. They cried them all out when Joey was a little boy"!!!!!!

Yes Dominic, you are probably right. ROFLMAO!!!

Who would believe someone so handsome would be so mean?

It shouldn't be allowed...

This little story isn't about the kids, it's about me and one of my many issues I have. I hate feet. I mean, I literally hate feet. They gross me out, far more than anyone can ever understand. I could seriously suffer a heart attack if someone touches me with their feet...and this is one of the reasons I will not share blankets with my husband. Yes, even in a deep sleep if a foot touches me, I'll freak out and possibly puke everywhere. When our oldest was born, the nurse brought her to me, and my mom quickly unwrapped her from her blankets to show me how perfect she was. In my drugged stupor from having a c-section, I almost tossed my perfect baby across the room as a foot almost touched my skin! Yes, my dislike of feet is *THAT* bad. Had it not been for my mom grabbing her, there is no telling what may have happened. LOL!

So, imagine my surprise as I am sitting on the couch, eating a salad and watching some TV. A commercial for News 5 comes on and the 2 news anchors are talking about an upcoming story. They say something like "Don't be grossed out, we'll test this product" and what do they show??? Someone shaving dead skin from their nasty feet using a ped-egg. That's it!!! Dinner is over. O-V-E-R! How can you even put these images on TV?

Have you seen the commercial? Check it out HERE. Tell me, is this something you want to see without warning of the vile dead skin shaving being shown? Blaaaaaaahhh, I think NOT.

Now I understand why people always say it's horrible to watch TV and eat at the same time.