Frustrations of a Home Bound Mom!

So today (yesterday) has been one of those days, or perhaps it's been one of those weeks, months, quarters, hmmm... I guess it's just been a year!  I often find myself wishing I lived another life, yes I have mentioned this before, free from torturous whining, kids screaming, never ending homework nagging, duct tape needing, mom screaming, hair pulling, happy fun filled days that seem to be the bane of my existence anymore!

The life where I made all the RIGHT decisions and stopped second guessing every decision that I have made!  You know, those decision that ultimately define the rest of your life.

In that other life, my life would be filled with wisdom, knowledge, confidence, no regrets, making a decision and running with it and not second guessing every damn decision I do make, not listening to anyone but myself and God, not allowing what I thought everyone wanted me to do or be to guide my every decision. I would stop trying to be so disgustingly perfect.  I wouldn't feel bad about my failures and use that to fuel my new endeavors. I would be full of I do's instead of "I didn't dare". I would put more worth on what I believe and value and not what other's value in me.  I wouldn't be so scared to try and be excited for the result no matter the outcome!

Oh and it would include some sort of nanny, a beach front property with NO hurricanes, and a masseuse to rub any and all of the incessant mommy stresses away, a hubby who cooked and cleaned (preferably) and children who cleaned up, wiped up, peed in the toilet not on the toilet, folded clothes, washed their own laundry, never complained, didn't know the meaning of "eyes rolling", refrained from nose picking, toilet role replacing, respectable, "your the best mom ever award", sweet and ever mindful children.  (It's a dream people)

Instead I have been consuming myself with the extremely efficient mind numbing game of what if I....

1. Finished college the first go around (rather than returning 10 years later and trying to finish a degree with three little hellions and four extra mouths to feed, laundry to be done, food to be cooked... yada, yada, yada, you get the picture!
2. Didn't have kids when I was a completely under qualified (is there such a thing as an over qualified mom?)
3. Got financially secure before having kids, (somehow I think those two go hand in hand)
4. Was the perfect mom
5. Wasn't so damn serious all the time
6. Wasn't so flippin indecisive
7. Found joy in the monotony of every day life
8. Woke up every day, went running before the break of dawn, showered, hair done, dressed, laundry load done, dishes done, all before the kids woke up! (Hell, then what would I do with the rest of my day!)
9. Finished the jobs I started... that would be a good start

Oh and 10. Stop being such a dumb A__! (This just goes with out saying ;)

I mean, I am quite sure that had I actually waited to bear children until I was a little more mature perhaps I would have made more qualified decisions! Like, perhaps it would be wiser to put the hubby through school while your going to school, or better yet, don't even get married until you have your degree, then get married, but wait to have kids until you can actually pay for that house, and not be scraping by.... But, no!  I got married at the age of 20, had my first kid at 22, had my second kid at 24, was practically a single mom putting her husband through Architecture school, and in the meantime lost my mind, identity, and became, hmmm still not sure!

I think that is where I'm at now, trying to figure out who the hell I am all the while still maintaining that "I am an awesome mom" complex, which we all know doesn't really exist; it's purely a figment of our imaginations.

Sorry to break it to you ladies! If your still living in that bubble, just be prepared because the fact is THERE IS NO SUCH THING! If there is anything I have learned over the years it's that if you think there is such thing as perfection, your setting yourself up for failure, it's inevitable! You might as well hear it from me now instead of ten years down the road! Just sayin!

Unfortunately, one of these days (if you haven't already) you will have a midlife crisis like yours truly and wonder where that amazing woman went only to find that the reflection in the mirror slightly resembles that girl from long ago, but is no where to be found!  If you are fortunate enough to never experience such a thing, please tell me what miracle drug you've found because the rest of us would appreciate it and we will thank you for it!

Until then, I'm befuddled by the road not taken, and longing for that daring girl that once resembled me and wondering if she still exists; somewhere?

And, if she is there, is it possible to reinvent her, or perhaps become a better version of her?  And if so, how, what, when and where is she and how do I begin to bring her back?

Lost in a world not my own,

Yours Truly!

Ragnar Relay Complete!

Ragnar Relay Chattanooga TN to Nashville TN is over!  I have never been so tired or had so much fun in all my life (okay that might be debatable  however it is the funnest thing I can recall in the last year!) So here are some fun pics of our trip! We headed out from Mississippi Thursday night, with two vans, 12 girls, tons of food, and lots of fluids!  Here is van 1, this is where we ate, slept (tried), changed, cheered, laughed, and lived for over 30 hours! Stupid you say, absolutely! Fun? Hell yeah! (Make sure to read on, the good stuff is toward the bottom!)

Here we are are, still looking all perky and fresh!  Just before we head out from Starkville, Mississippi!

We decided to stop in Birmingham AL for dinner and ended up spending way to long (people couldn't make up their minds on where to eat!) in Birmingham! We finally decided to eat at P.F. Chang's, I swear we were there for half the night, okay maybe two or three hours... here we are waiting ............................................... ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...the funniest part of the evening; when one of the girls at my table asked for her red velvet cake and got this instead! It's so big, it's invincible!

and after 30 seconds (because that was eating it slow) this is what was left!

I know your wondering what in the world.... that's what we thought too!  What she was expecting was one of those larger than you could possibly eat slices of heaven!  Instead, she got this, a shot glass of two minuscule layers of cake and whipped cream. I almost peed my pants when my friend looked at the waitress and said "Really? Really, this is it?"  We were all laughing so hard, apparently P.F. Chang's is not the place for Red Velvet Cake! Just FYI!   So much for sharing, Misty and her tiny spoon gobbled it all up, in one bite I might add! And then she asked the waitress for the glass, figured that would at least cover the rest of the cost! Again, I'm amazed I didn't soak myself! (Misty, bottom picture, middle row on the right!)

Once again we hit the road, arriving in Chattanooga TN around midnight (I can't remember if that was MS time or TN time?) it's all a little fuzzy now.  That's what three hours of sleep and 26 hours of wake time mixed with running at all hours of the day & night will do to you (not recommended)

So we arrive at the hotel, and of course the anxiety of it all hits.  It is nearly impossible for me to sleep the night before a race.  Why I can't just sleep is beyond me! I mean, I NEED MY BEAUTY SLEEP PEOPLE! I think I may have gotten 3 hours, but really, I have no idea.  It's hard to be sure whilst drifting aimlessly in and out of sleep, and then the girls starting getting up at 4:30 AM! HOLY FREAK GIRLS, and they do this on a regular basis :( Insane in my opinion!

Here we are at the starting line!

Misty, Tangela, Me (Audra), Carey, Jennifer, Kacey

My running, sleeping, pooping, driving buddies for the next 30 hours!

Kacy took leg 1, we were so excited we were like little kids on Christmas morning... I think we stopped to cheer her on every mile! Needless to say we eventually realized we were being a little over zealous and slowed our momentum down!

Here is Kacey going up a beast of a hill! You go GIRL!

I think she is getting tired of us at this point! Sorry Kacey, we're just a little excited if you can't tell!

This is where Kacey finished her first leg, so incredibly beautiful!

And Carey was off, leg 2 was one of two hardest runs of the entire route... the first two miles gradually inclined, and then all the sudden it was 4 miles up a mountain! Carey was a freight train, she just kept going and going... no stopping for this girl, she doesn't know the meaning of the word!

Still has a smile on her face! 

Here's iron man I mean woman... 

Our Mascot!

Here I am getting ready for my first leg!

Checking my music and making sure mapmyrun is ready to record my run... no paranoia I assure you!

What goes up, must come down! Here comes Jennifer finishing up leg 3...

 Run Jen Run! Dang she looks good :)

another check, just in case... there is no OCD here! None, whatsoever!!!

Just keep running, just keep running, just keep running, running, running, what do ya do, we runnnnnn!

I am still a little excited can ya tell?  Obviously this is the first run, our tenacity starts waning as you will see :)

Misty rocked her first leg, leg 5!

We decided to surprise Misty with a little silly string, go SUPERFLY!

Don't we have a cute van! Thanks Jennifer, you made us look gooooood!

Here comes Tangela, leg 6!

Doesn't she look tough! 

Whoot whoot!

And then things become a little fuzzy, wake time (11.5 hours, or longer if you don't include the 3 lousy hours of sleep we got the night before), ...again, fuzzy!  

On top of that, after our first major exchange and getting some much needed food, we somehow managed to park our butts & beds 10 yards from a active train track, 3 trains later + Mexican music playing in the background = NO SLEEP! Son of a gun, not again!

Don't we look fresh and beautiful! No sleep deprivation whatsoever!  

Damn we look good :)

Hello we are starving people!

And then the pictures become few and far between. Our second leg begins sometime after 6 pm.  I think my leg (leg 4) began sometime around 10 pm, although, it's all a little foggy, something akin to coming off of anesthesia, and you feel like your head weighs 50 lbs and the world is spinning off it's axis!  All I remember is running 4.3 miles  in complete and utter darkness (thank heaven it was my shortest leg).

One thing I'm trying to get used to here in the south is the tree's. They are everywhere, they line the streets and go for miles and when your running down a road lined with tree's, dogs barking, cars trying to run you over.. weird things start to creep into your head.  I'm pretty sure there were points in that run where I could have been considered for a loony bin, you know, talking to myself, singing childhood songs, looking behind my shoulder, looking to the right and the to the left; wondering when the psycho would jump out of the tree's and grab his next victim and how I would kick his ass with my superwoman capabilities if he tried!  

A few pep talks later with yours truly, a couple little prayers, and a few primary songs later, my nerves calmed down and once I hit the down hill, the legs started cruising and I was sure I was SUPERWOMAN...  I went from an 8.32 average per mile to 7.2 average at the finish line.  I love hitting a good down hill run at the end of a race, you know that point when your legs start to feel like jello; the amazing part is that whether you like it or not, your legs begin to move without you actually telling them to. Superwoman, in all my glory; cape, boots, boobs and all!  Well, minus the boobs and add the trickle effect, you know the effect that comes from bringing 3 little aliens into the world, damn you kegel muscles!  Apparently, anytime I run uphill, downhill, or speed up (so basically most of the time) I leak.  Good thing only one of my pipes was leaking! Or that could have been really bad  :/ if you know what I mean?

We took another break and then sometime around 4 am I hit my last leg, the longest of the three and hardest of the three.  Running on fumes, exhaustion and fatigue were definitely a worry for me.  About 30 minutes before taking off I made sure to take a Energy pack and a few electrolyte chews.  

Well, amazingly enough I started out and I felt great, in fact this run was the best of the three.  Insane I know!  I took another goo about 4 miles into this run, which was good considering it was hill after hill after hill and they only seemed to get worse.  Just after taking this little magic pack of goo, I hit the largest hill and passed three people including the lady who zipped past me a mile and a half into my run... sucka!  Don't people know you never start out strong! People... start out slow, ESPECIALLY considering this was the last leg, your already tired, you've been up for over 24 hours, and you don't know what your body is going to do come mile 5 or 6.  Well, I kicked all their butts! That's right, I'll trash talk you into tomorrow all y'all!

We finished 2nd place in the All Women's Division only getting beat by 14 minutes! Our time 29:34, not too shabby for a bunch of 30+  rockin women!

We make this look gooood!

I was told IHOP was delicious... do you think they had any Diet Coke?  NO! Misty, not cool :<

However, I've never seen a girl eat so many buttermilk pancakes! 

Here are our shirts, they turned out Great! Thanks to my idea of the girls, and my hubby, Jake's fabulous graphic design skills, we looked fab running across the finish line!  Thanks babe :)

What an insane, crazy, exhausting, fun, crap shoot of a weekend (literally, don't you know that's why they have all the port-a-potties)!  Doesn't it sound fun?    

Can't wait to do it all over again!

If you want a good laugh, check this out!

What Is Your "Piece Of Heaven"?

It is not a secret that my little piece of heaven is that moment in my day when I get to drink an extremely cold diet coke, let me emphasize EXTREMELY cold Diet Coke.  Why diet coke?  I think in some bizarre and possibly psychotic way it takes me to a happy place.  Perhaps it is that I can call it mine.  And no grubby little fingers get any! We all know it has nothing to do with the addictive nature of caffeine.  And if so, who the heck cares, it tastes good!  In that moment of pure chaos, we mother's need a little piece of heaven.

Ahhhhhhhhh!

So I'm curious, what is YOUR piece of heaven?

Who done it?

So about two weeks ago I was getting ready to go on a 11 mile run.  Yes, I'm one of those crazy runners out there. One of the ones you either get (because your a crazy runner too) or don't get because who in their right mind would pound pavement for 11 miles unless someone paid you to do it.  Never say never... I was just like you, and then I started running!

Well nonetheless, as I was getting ready to run I realized I had my correction lens on... yes, my glasses.  I hate running in glasses because once you start sweating you just have to keep pushing them back in place every fives seconds.  Its' enough to drive even a mad women crazy.  So, I opened my car door and put them on my seat, shut the door and locked it.

I then decided that I didn't want to wear the florescent yellow shirt that was tied around my waste being that it was already a hot and humid morning.  So, again I opened my car door and placed the shirt on top of my glasses, of this I'm sure, shut the door and again, locked it!

Well my run was one for the record books, after living here in Starkville, MS for only two months and not being very familiar with it, I somehow managed to miss my turn off.  How in the hell did I do this you ask? Well I have no freaking clue, and still I can't figure it out; except to say that the road I was running on was full of cars, and being that Starkville has no shoulders to their skinny roads, I was in fear for my life.  I do remember this and after backtracking just to see what the heck went wrong I realized that, the exact spot where the turnoff was carried a string of lunatic tailgaters making there way through the streets of Starkville, MS.

Needless to say, I ended up running almost a half marathon that day, and to make matters worse, my calve spasmed and a tight knot found it's way into my right calf muscle sending shearing pain through my entire calf muscle, immediately stopping any thoughts I had about running the last mile.  So mile 12 I walked.  It was a mile from hell as any runner can appreciate.  For crying out loud, I had already run 11.5 miles, what is one more measly mile.  I tried two different times to run only for my calf to scream out in pain.  The result a pathetic and lowly girl walking on the side of a crappy road listening to her only saving grace, her iphone.  Thank heaven that baby didn't die on me or I may have gone all awoll right there on Oktoc road.

Best run ever!

So back to the original part of the story.  I finally make it back to my car, ornery  pathetic, and wanting a diet coke so bad I was about to go into withdrawals.  So I get in, throw my shirt on the ground; the one that I had set on top of my glasses, and... nothing.  No glasses.  Anywhere!  I think I was stunned; and as I looked around my car, I thought to myself, you're not losing your mind (I can't knowingly admit that to myself, that would result in a complete and utter meltdown, kind of like a SUPER MELTDOWN.  I've already had a partial meltdown... refer to post #2) the glasses have to be here somewhere I thought.  I slowly drove off and before I could get a mile down the road my instincts and panic got the best of me.  I pulled over, got out, went over to the passenger side door where I had previously put my glasses and shirt and searched.  My glasses were NOWHERE to be found.  I got in turned around and drove back to the spot where I parked.

I was tempted to get down on my hands & knees, however for risk of complete and utter humiliation I settled with pacing back and forth on the side of the road, in front of someone's house and next to someone elses car.  (Because in no way does this appear bizarre or lunatic like.)  And still, nothing... no glasses!

I drove home aloof and thwarted at what could have possibly occurred.   Glasses were there and then they weren't.  When I finally told my husband what had happened that night (Because somehow it didn't seem extraordinary that I had been wearing my prescription sunglasses all day long... indoors, watching t.v.)  The first thing that came out was "I swear a freaking troll got in and stole them!" I know, even now it is the only thing that makes sense.  I mean how in the hell do glasses just get up and walk away.

A 20 minute ordeal of vacuuming out my Journey, and still no glasses to be found.  I'm at a loss.  And to make it worse, I know the second I break down and go get my eyes checked, fork out the money for new glasses; that is the day my glasses will magically appear.

Damn you corrective lens stealing troll!

This is how I see these days, prescription sunglasses, even where the sun don't shine ;)