Jenn's Zen

In honor of our recent (Sunday June 8th) 17th wedding anniversary I thought I’d post this.

I finished up She’s Come Undone recently at the gym between classes. This quote is at the very end of the book and it had me both laughing out loud and thinking at the same time.

“…I just don’t believe in happily-ever-after”

“I ain’t offering you happily-ever-after. I’m offering you…happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after. Sort of. You know, with warts…”

Isn’t this so true?! Isn’t this all any of us really have to offer? When we get married we think we can offer the other person perfection (and thus receive it back in return) and yet in reality all we have to offer is ourselves, “You know, with warts”. It doesn’t sound nearly as romantic “happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after” but isn’t it much more realistic? This isn’t what young girls dream about, but maybe they should because it’s true.

Happy Anniversary to us, warts and all.

::

Pastor Fred posted this fun visual test and JD and I just spent the last hour taking all the tests. So, that’s what we’ve been up to today. It’s a hang out day, the little girl is still in her cozies. We have a date tonight, the glamming up will start soon.

I’ve never been an athlete or gym rat. While there have been times you could have called me athletic, cheerleading comes to mind, I’ve just never been that sort of person. Until possibly now.

Last May a few planets aligned and I found myself going to the gym on a regular basis. The necessary planets were 1) Oprah was a smaller size than me 2) I hit a very unmagical number on the scale 3) my wardrobe was getting smaller and smaller because I REFUSED to buy a bigger size 4) my wedding ring no longer fit and I was to embarrassed to have it sized up, AGAIN 5) Lifetime Fitness came to town and JD’s employer provided a corporate membership for all employees and their families.

So, we got our membership cards and were there at the open house in May 2007. They opened two or three days later, and I’ve been there five days a week ever since (more or less/ give or take). I’m still pretty shocked about it myself. Call it right time, right mindset. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m here, I’m blogging.  Note, it’s after midnight and I’m only doing this because my aunt has been harassing me long-distance via my mother to blog. To her I say, “WHERE ARE MY GIRLSCOUT COOKIES?!” Ha, gotcha!

Life here has been crazy since we returned from Disney.  We had a great time and our pics are on Flicker.  If you’d like an invitation to view them let me know and we’ll hook you up. They aren’t public.

The little girl only has 10 days or so of pre-school left.  The big “K” starts in July. Hm… time to book my mommy spa day. Our summer will be a mish/mash of Kindergarten, the nanny job, swimming, trips to the library and just general hangin’ out.

I’m working on an entry regarding the gym. It’s been a year since Lifetime Fitness opened in Cary, so it makes sense that I should mention it this month.

More soon~

I just did something I NEVER thought I could do.

I scooped ice cream out of the pint container and returned the remaining portion to the freezer. Wow. Really, I did.

First of all let me tell you that I rarely buy ice cream by the pint. It’s usually a fancy expensive, calorie-laden brand and I don’t feel like it’s worth it. Second, even though the container says 4 servings it’s really a one-time sit down with the spoon. Seriously, we all know this. If it gets opened, it’s all going to get eaten.

So, Mayfield pints were on sale 10/$10.00 (cheaper than what used to be the half-gallon). Would they have sold them to me for $1 each, I dunno. I bought 10. The calories per serving are 160. (Why I know this or care is a different post).

Friday night I ate a whole one. What can I say; I was home by myself catching up on Oprah and Brothers & Sisters. Saturday, I split one with Emily. And today I made the never before attempted, scoop out one serving (approx two scoops) and put the container back in the freezer. Step away from the freezer.

By the way, using the smallest bowl in the house helps!

As I was getting dressed today I noticed my clothing:

• Levi’s jeans
• t-shirt from Hard Rock Café (Maui, yes, I really went there)
• bra from Vera Wang
• undies from Gap Body
• and sweater from Abercrombie and Fitch

I’m not a label girl, really I’m not. I buy what I like and what fits and only pay what I want to pay. The jeans are the $20 variety from Target, the t-shirt was a tourist purchase almost 7 years ago, the bra was less than $20, the undies were on sale I’m sure of it, probably 3/$10 or some such thing. The sweater is of course the gem from our recent Goodwill outing. All could have been made in China, so possibly not so very American after all.

This past Saturday was a beautiful thing.

It was the perfect symbiosis of life as JD and I have figured out thus far. We all like to sleep in.  Well, to qualify that the little girl likes to “snuggle in”.  If someone is willing to get her something to eat and let her snuggle back into the bed to watch TV, the morning is golden. Because of our schedules, the way that they are, this is best enjoyed on Saturdays. This last week the breakfast and snuggling were delayed a bit even by E’s normal routine. She is usually up and ready to face the world at 6:45 am and then detained in her room until her clock reads 7:00 am. At that time she is allowed to venture out and seek comfort for her hungry belly and cold feet. This is of course assuming that she hasn’t already climbed into our bed between the hours of 1:00 and 4:00 am. When this happens, as long as she goes back to sleep, I don’t mind anymore (notice the anymore, I’m relaxing into motherhood!).

So, back to Saturday… 8:00 am E and I are up and had toast or cereal or some such token of breakfast. I got dressed, she got dressed and then we both went back to mommy and daddy’s room to watch TV. An hour or so later JD joined us in the awakened state. He was hungry, but neither cereal nor toast was sounding good. I mentioned IHOP and heard, “Do they deliver?” “Um, no.” And truthfully soggy lukewarm pancakes with rubbery eggs just don’t sound very good out of a Styrofoam box. The Saturday attire of t-shirt, hat, cargo shorts was donned by JD and off we went. Surprisingly the wait was less than 20 minutes and we were seated in a timely manner. YUM! When IHOP sounds good, and then I actually get to eat it, YUM! That’s all I have to say. By the way, I order the same thing EVERY time: Harvest nut & grain pancake combo, eggs over medium w/ sausage. High cholesterol be damned. It isn’t like I eat it every week, or even every month for that matter.
Read the rest of this entry »

With the little girl having turned five, thus beginning Kindergarten soon, the inevitable has arrived. The question of whether or not to return to work outside the home. For some reason when people ask, “what do you do?” and you answer “I’m a stay-at-home-mom” they expect you to be home with someone younger than the age of five. I’m not sure why, but it is so. If they find out you are staying at home with a seven year old there is a look that comes over them and all of a sudden they act as though they feel embarrassed for you or some such thing.

This however is no easy decision. The questions begin immediately, full-time? Part-time? What type of job? Do you look for something similar to what you did before having a child or something new? Does the new venture require after-school care? What about school breaks? Do you need to brush up on your skills? Can you make enough to cover the new expenses? Can you actually get hired? All of these things have to be addressed. Ultimately the goal is to find something that is PERFECT. Perfect for your family. I’ve been brainstorming this for months.

Do I continue to nanny? I can bring the little girl whenever necessary and this current family respects me and is very generous. Do I try to admin again? I love doing it, but the schedule blows. A tele-commuting admin kind of defeats the purpose. I briefly considered passing out resumes to various Doc offices to see if anyone needed a part-time, track three mommy to fill in. That seemed complicated.

What I’ve finally decided to pursue will probably come as no surprise to those who know me well. I’ve decided to put in an application for a teacher’s assistant and get on the same track as E. This way I’ll have the days off when she does for the most part. The pay is alright and I truly think I’d like the job. Years ago I went to school for elementary ed, so those thoughts and desires of helping to shape young minds still lurk within my soul.

So, today that’s my plan. We’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned for more updates.

So, I’m getting ready to watch a new episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve been watching other shows on ABC (Sunday night reality shows that make me cry every single time) and I’ve seen the marketing gurus’ attempts at a heartfelt commercial with the leaves and growth and good thoughts. I was thus led to believe that new episodes would be coming soon, as soon as this week. As I’m writing this JD and I are suffering through Miss Guided – a show shamelessly aimed at my demographic. And only during this show did I realize that Grey’s Anatomy would not be following at 9:00 pm. This led me to ABC’s site to inquire as to when new episodes would start. April(FREAKIN’) 24th?!? Are you kidding me?

So, unfortunately, thanks to the writer’s strike, I’ve been without my fav show for months. I know they’ve made the re-runs available, but seriously, I haven’t missed an episode since the show started. Catching up is not exactly what I needed. I needed to know what my kids were up to at Seattle Grace.  I needed to know how Meredith and McDreamy were doing. I needed to know if George and Izzy were still each other’s best friend. I needed to know how Christina was coping. I needed to know if Bailey’s marriage is going to survive. A re-run was going to solve nothing.

A few weeks ago I read an article that stated post strike only a few hit shows would be returning to finish out the season. After being concerned that some of the shows I’d already grown attached to (think Dirty Sexy Money, Private Practice and Big Shots) were possibly in danger of being canceled I realized something slightly unspoken yet completely implied in the article. I realized that with the few shows finishing out the season that’s all they plan on doing… finish out the season.

WHAT?! They owe me.  Shonda Rhimes and her staff owe me a FULL season of shows.  What is that usually?  23/26 shows? I think they maybe got 10-12 episodes in before the strike.  THEY OWE ME!!! I’ll be here all summer, I’m ready, bring it on. 12 new shows would easily pull me through the hot, humid, BORING TV, summer. I know they were plotting, scheming and writing during the strike. You know, not officially, but just enough so that they are completely and totally caught up. Taking the summer off is not an option. 90210 did it years ago, it was a beautiful thing appreciated by fans the world over. Are new shows throughout the summer such a bad thing? I think not. Besides, they owe me!

With a visit from out of town family scheduled for later this week I thought it a good idea to clean out the car today. We (E was a fabulous helper) sorted the trash from the treasures.  Then the trash was sorted recyclable and true trash.  We tossed stinky smoothie cups, languished over the beauty of a black straw and pulled the booster seat out.  I held the booster upside down and a fine mist of crumbs and glitter hit the driveway.  Then I delved into the little girl’s booster cup holder.  There I found the following objects:

• a perfect shell no bigger than my thumbnail
• a nickel
• a straw wrapper
• three strands of short yarn
• several misc. stickers
• two sequins of different shape and color

The car is now clear, and the seat put back in, however I think the vacuuming will have to wait for tomorrow.  Let’s hear it for sunny weather!

This entry inspired by LCB  and her posts about what she finds in her sons pockets.