Pounds ahead

I was very, very happy when I came home to this package last week

My new Pampered Chef pan to replace the one the dish drainer broke. It was kind of a torn moment. One of excited glee and one of sadness by looking at that brand new, unseasoned pan. For those who are unfamiliar with these wonderful kitchen implements, the more you use it the better it becomes. I wish I had taken a picture of the pieces of my old one. You would not believe they were the same pan. The bottom was completely black and there was a great amount of joy from that blackness.

I'm excited to have my favorite pan replaced, but I know if will be years before it is in it's ideal state. So I need to get started on that process. Enter dilemma. The best things to season the pan are things with lots of fat in them. Something I am trying my hardest to limit. And my all time favorite thing to use this pan for? Cookies. But I have some sort of brain disorder that prevents me from eating a reasonable amount of cookie dough. And I honestly wouldn't care if the cookies are never cooked, it's the dough that has it's grip on me. Especially if it has oatmeal in it.

I was feeling a little blue this weekend and couldn't resist the pan calling to me, begging me to make some cookies on it. So I gave in. Luckily I gave almost all the cookies to Pat to take to his apartment, and took the rest to my parents for Monday night dinner. Of course not before making myself sick on cookie dough.


Healthy things just aren't as fun to bake. Maybe I need someone to bake cookies for. Any takers?

Oh, and be jealous of my built-in 70's puke yellow stove. It's pretty awesome.

Battleground

I'm sure every parent with a child has or will soon have many, many fights over picking up toys. In our house it's (drum roll, this is a big shocker) ...cars. Will has a box that has about 80 of the cars he plays with the most. Of course he can't just pull out the six cars he is actually going to play with. No, the entire box has to be dumped out, on the living room floor, on a daily basis. And pretty much on a daily basis we have a discussion as soon as that box passes from the kitchen linoleum to the living room carpet, about how if he dumps out that box, he will have to pick them up before he goes to bed.

The problem is bed time comes around and you have to pick your battles. And since bed time is usually a battle, I usually let the picking up the cars thing go. Well I'm pretty much tired of picking up the same cars on a daily basis. I have started weeding out a few when he isn't looking that I know he hasn't played with in a few days, and sneaking them into a box in his closet. I don't have any plans of getting rid of them, I just don't want to pick them up every day.

Today I thought I would try something new. When the daily box push was happening, I stopped him, made him look me in the eye and promise that all of those cars were going to be picked up before we went to bed. And if the cars weren't picked up, I was taking them away for one day. About 20 minutes before bed time I started the reminders. He might want to start picking up the cars. Of course he was more interested in the, it's not bed time right now part, then bothering with the cars.

So when his show was done and it was time to go to bed I told him he needed to be picking up the cars now. After about five minutes and three cars being picked up I told him we were going to play a game. I was going to set the timer for three minutes and any car that wasn't picked up, was going into a bag and he would not get to play with those cars for one day. I'm not sure he knew what I was saying, or didn't think I would really do anything because he didn't get much faster. When the timer went off about half the cars were still on the floor. So I grabbed a bag and started picking them up.

Wow! His finger being smashed in a drawer several hours earlier didn't get that big of a reaction. You would have thought I just told him that I was taking away all of his toys, forever, and never getting him a toy again. Unfortunately for him one of the closest toys to me, so first to be picked up, was a new one he had just got that night. He feel to his knees and sobbed that it was his favorite car, and he loved that car, and he needed that car. I didn't cave. I picked up the rest of the cars, put them in a bag, and put the bag on top of a cupboard.

Will decided that he was going to stay in the living room while he screamed and I went to bed. A few minutes later Will came and climbed into bed his arms folded defiantly across his chest.

Mom, I don't want there to be any more timers in my house. They are not nice. And you are not my best friend, any more. (pause) But there is one problem. I need my pants off.

I helped him get undressed and into bed. He ended up crying himself to sleep repeating how much he loved those cars and how much he loved his daddy and his daddy wouldn't want me to take away his cars. Normally I am a softy, but I was secretly smiling laying next to him. I'm pretty sure next time I ask for his cars to be picked up, they will be.

Willism

After Will smashed his finger in a drawer and I'm holding him:

Me: kiss his finger
Will: Mom, this owie doesn't need a kiss. Maybe later it will need one. But kisses aren't for these kind of owies. Kisses are for when people want to cuddle. (gives me a hug) These kind of owies just need a band aid.

Please don't tell me the days of my magic kisses are over. Or that we have reached the days of having to explain that only mommies and daddies do "those things".

Fight Night

(Sorry this is a really long post, I'm not sure how to write a short story)


On Friday night I had a new experience and attended my first "fight". Normally not something I can ever imagine myself going to, but my friend Wade was fighting so I went. My friend Jenny ended up going with me and I found out on the way to the fight that she won't even let her husband watch a fight on tv because they bother her so much, so I'm very grateful that she attended as my date. The fights are mixed martial arts fought in a cage at a club in Salt Lake. They have them every Friday night and are televised on the CW or Comcast OnDemand if you have it. I try to avoid any type of confrontation at all costs so I wasn't sure what I would think about watching guys volunteer to beat the crap out of each other.

So here is my run down of the night. I take no responsibility if the events that night did not happen exactly as I describe them. This is what I remember. And I don't know their names, and I'm not sure even if I matched them up correctly (I don't think some of them were listed on the website, not like any of you except Wade were there, so how would you know.)

Fight 1

white shorts vs green shorts

This fight went the full 3 rounds. Almost the whole thing was on the mats in different wrestling moves. It's pretty obvious to tell who is in control when one person is on top of the other smashing their face in, but when they are all twisted just laying on the ground, I wasn't ever really sure who was "winning". Green got a few good knees into whites kidneys which looked pretty painful. The first 2 rounds seemed to go to green but I was a little confused. I asked the guy next to me and he explained a little more about what was going on and how the judging goes. And proceeded to tell me how it was obvious that green won the fight. Near the end of the fight white was sitting on top of green, but just sitting there, not hitting him or anything and looked like he was going to pass out. Then they announced the decision and it went to white. So I guess I wasn't the only one confused. I didn't want white to win mostly because he was wearing these dorky overalls and straw hat as part of his "persona". He even had to put them back on before his post-interview. I think it took away any cred he had from winning the fight.

Fight 2


toughy vs newbie

(I'm not positive that is the right guy for toughy, they all look different in the ring)
This fight lasted 30 seconds. Toughy got newbie down to the mat and had his arm bent back at the elbow. His arm was gonna snap if it stayed like that and newbie "tapped out". New fighting term I learned, they tap the mat and end it. Even though this was the shortest fight of the night, it caused the most drama. Turns out newbie's dad was in the crowd and I'm not sure if it was alcohol induced, but the guy was an ass. The dad went on for at least 5 minutes screaming at the top of his lungs something about the fight which I could not understand one minute of. The fact that the fight was over and they were just doing what ever they do at the end of fight to finalize things, made it even more obvious. He start really getting on everyone nerves that was anywhere near him.

The guy sitting next me asked Wade's brother-in-law if he had his back, and then told the guy to shut up. The fact that Jenny and I were the two people in between the dad and guy sitting next to me was not the most comfortable place to be. Luckily the dad walked away after a few mean looks back. The guy sitting next to me later went to the bar and the dad bought him a drink and apologized. I guess it was his son's first fight and he was just a little amped up. Still, I wouldn't recommend he follow his son around to other fights.

Fight 3













tattoo vs some guy that I couldn't find his picture

It was pretty obvious before this fight that tattoo was a little more experienced. Some guy held his own well enough to last all 3 rounds, but it was very obvious who won, even I was able to tell that tattoo got it. During the post-interview it turned out that some guy didn't know how much he weighed and was actually in a different weight class then what he thought. So they had to find someone in a different class last minute to fight him. Sadly for him tattoo is a regular (or at least that's the impression I got.) Some guy had quite the large crowd of guys all there in support of him. The tv cameras were loving them. Jenny and I were not loving them. We had saved seats at tables and they were in the area where you just stand. If you are standing you are not supposed to go past a pole at the edge of our tables. There were so many of them that they kept standing in front of our table to see. The security asked them several times to step back, but I actually don't think any of them spoke english.

During the post interview the announcer was very complimentary to some guy and that he fought a good fight and brought a good group of fans. I think it was his first fight too and he did good considering. Then tattoo got up for his interview and the announcer went on and on about how tattoo has been really sick and only agreed to fight as a favor so that some guy wouldn't have to cancel his fight. It sort of canceled out the "great job" he was giving some guy.

Fight 4 (the most important one)



Wade "The Rascal" Haskell vs Chase "The Real Deal" Pearson

I think this fight went the longest with both fighters staying upright and not going down to the mat. A few jabs a few kicks but both fighters held their own. Then with 6 seconds left in the first round Chase got a lucky hit right above Wade's eye. The doctor came in and called the fight. This was the result.


Still smiling, ended up with a double layer of stitches. Although the fight ended early, I think I would have preferred to go out that way. Of course I'm not a fighter, so maybe it's different. But I'd rather the guy get one lucky punch in and have it end cause I have blood running in my eye, then get the crap beat out of me, or lose by a one point decision. I mean I'm sure it's better to just win, but I think Wade still did a good job. And hell, you'd never see me get in a cage to fight someone, so you got that. I already made this comment on Facebook, but I was impressed by his post-fight interview. I thought he was very gracious and a good sport. I hope he felt like he was able to leave with his head held high. And yes I will admit a little bias in this, but I'm very glad I went and was able to see Wade fight.

Fight 5



Baldy vs Toothless

(I'm not sure if toothless is the right pic, none of them looked like him)

This was the main event fight. Toothless came out and went into the cage like everyone else. Then out comes baldy. He was obviously a regular and decided that instead of just walking straight to the cage he would first take a tour through half of the club with the tv guys leading in front of him. I thought it was a little lame. As soon as they were both in the cage I leaned over to Jenny and told her that baldy was gonna beat the crap out of toothless. He did. In the second round a tooth got knocked out. I'm not sure how in the world he lasted all 3 rounds but by the end his entire face was covered in his own blood and it was dripping everywhere. It was kind of disturbing to watch. And like I mentioned before, not the way I would want my fight to end if I was going to lose. For like the last 30 seconds it was just baldy sitting on top of toothless just railing punches into his face. At least that's all I could see. For most of that fight we had one of the fight sanctioning guys standing right in front of our table. Overall I think that fight was just kind of sad to watch. It just felt like watching a bully beat up the nerd from class.

In between the fights they had people from the crowd come up and "fight" with these large gloves. Wade's little brother Matt did the first round. It was hard to get any decent photos, but this gives you an idea.

At the end of the fights they let the audience decide who had won. Now I'm not sure that Matt would have won "technically" but Wade had a good cheering section and Matt was declared the winner. I'd like to think I contributed to that win, I'm a pretty good yeller.

But the most exciting part of the night came after the last fight when they were waiting for the decision to be announced. Newbie's dad all of the sudden came back and was yelling again, very loudly, something to do with the final fight, but I had no idea what he was trying to say. I guess the guy sitting in front of us (red) had enough and told dad that he was spitting on him and to shut the hell up, or something along that line. Dad did a chest puff move towards red and red was out of his seat. I was amazed at how fast the guy next to me and Wade's brother-in-law had red back down in his seat. The had their arms around the guy's neck keeping him from going after the dad. The security did a good job of getting the dad out of there very quickly, and the wife of red made sure they left right after. I'm glad it didn't go beyond what it did, but it made for an exciting end to the night.

So that was my exciting Friday night. Considering I usually spend them on the couch watching tv with Will, it was quite an escape from the norm. Not sure I will ever go to a fight again, unless Wade un-retires, but it was definitely an adventure.

Last comment, if you ever get valet parking and they ask for a tip when you drop off the car, wait till you pick it up in case they tell you it's gonna be like 10 minutes even though your car is parked 4 spots from where you are standing in the 20 degree weather.

Happy Valentines Day

Since I can remember, my mom has always given us girls something on Valentines Day. When we were growing up she would make us a special breakfast and have some special present for us. Some years it was jewelry, one year custom made t-shirts, but always something to say I LOVE YOU. Even when I moved away to college, I still got a little package in the mail on Valentines. This year it was beautiful tulips and Ferrero Rocher. And who can't be happy eating Ferrero Rocher. Maybe because of that I don't view the day as only a day between you and your significant other. I think it's a day to be thankful for all the people in your life that you love.

There is part of me that feels like you shouldn't make the effort just because it's a made up holiday, and that showing your love on any day just because you care is more important. But some times we just need those forced times to make us really think about it. Sort of force us out of our daily routine and take notice of what's around us.

So on this Valentines, even though I am physically alone today, I am feeling very loved. I have an amazing family (immediate and extended) who I love dearly and I know they are 100% supportive of whatever I do in my life. I'm not good about calling people on the phone or making the effort to stay in close contact, but I know I can see or hear from any of my sisters and immediately feel better about the day. I have great parents who help me out in any way they can, at any time, even if it's not convenient.

I have amazing friends who let me go on and on about the same drama and petty problems without ever telling me to get over it. I have some friends that I talk to on a very regular basis and others that I might not talk to for months. And yet I know all of them are right there for me if I ever needed them. I have wonderful coworkers (current and past) who I consider some of my best friends. They have to deal with my quirks on almost a daily basis, and yet they are still there for me.

And as weird as it may sound, I have really great online friends. Some fit into other categories mentioned, and others are just that. But right now I have some great ones and I greatly appreciate the love and support I get from them.

Even though my marriage may be over, I ended up with a wonderful little boy who I love dearly. (and just for today I won't think about all the times he tells me he won't be my friend anymore) And I ended up with a great added extended family that I care for as much as my own.

So on this day of expressing love, I want you all to know how much I love you. And how grateful I am to have you all in my life. And even though I severely dislike hearts, I'm gonna post one, cause that's how much I am ok with today being Valentines Day.

If Facebook was in real life

I had to repost this link from my cousin Sandy

I think it's pretty awesome.

New Haircut

I've been resiting getting Will's hair cut. I wasn't happy with the last one he got and was scared to try again. Will inherited the very strong Van Wagner cowlick that means if it's any shorter than it currently is on top, it sticks straight up. I've tried wetting it, gelling it, everything I can think of, and it will look fine when we leave the house but by the time we get anywhere it is sticking straight up again. The problem is that if it's long enough to not stick up, it hangs over his ears and down into his eyes.


Pat has taken Will every time to get his hair cut, so I figured maybe if I took him, I could better explain what I was looking for. I'm pretty happy with the result. It's not perfect, but for the amount of wiggling he was doing, I think she did the best she could.

I really miss the days though when his hair started to curl when it got long, and just looked wispy and cute. It's sad but the first time you cut those little curls off, they never grow back. At least if you inherited my straight hair they don't.

Death Mobile

This is the latest car to be added to Will's ever growing collection:


Ummm....yeah...that is a hearse. Matchbox makes a hearse. (sidenote: I always thought it was spelled hurse)

I'm not sure why they make a hearse. To encourage kids to want to grow up to be a mortician? I just wonder if the person who decided to add this to the line of trucks, race cars and jeeps envisioned the conversations this might create between parent and child. I mean I have managed to not say what I'm thinking about Will's pimped out 70's van, but this one is a little more difficult to side step.

Me: It's time to go to bed
Will: But I want to bring my new car to bed
M: Ok, you can bring him to bed
W: It's not a him mom, it's a car
M: Sorry, you can bring your toy to bed
W: It's not a toy mom, it's just something I play with

In bed

W: Mom, how come a hearse has to drive slow?
(great, how do I answer this.)
M: Cause it's not a race car so it has to drive slow

The closest we have come to a discussion about death is when we drive by the Provo Cemetery and Will asks what it is. I did tell him that it's where they bury people that have died. I'm just not sure he knows what died means. When he asked more questions we decided it is like the junk yard where they take cars that no longer work, just for people. He was satisfied with that answer.

So maybe if the cemetery is like a junk yard, then a hearse is like a tow truck? I think I'm gonna go with that.