–by Carla

Howdy and Happy New Year to ya! Sorry I’ve been a little MIA, but it’s been a little nuts around here. The worst of the worst came when my trusty old friend, Super Immunity, failed me. Yes, friends, I got sick. It is a phenomenon that happens only once in a blue moon, but it happened and it took me down hard. I mean, it’s not like I get to call in sick at my job or anything. Those two sweet little boys still need clean diapers, snazzy outfits and yummy food…several times each day. Rain or shine. Sick or not. I’m sort of like the U.S. Postal Service, you could say.

Quick recap since my last post: The holidays were amazing. It snowed on Christmas Eve…in Dallas! I’ve whipped up several batches of homemade chicken soup…it was a snap each time. I colored my own hair and didn’t turn it orange. I made homemade peppermint lip balm for the women in my family and close friends. It was so super fun and easy and very cost effective. $7.91 each. I also started making homemade sugar/lavender body scrub. I used to pay at least $20 for it, now it’s ready in minutes and so stinking inexpensive to make at home, it’s almost funny. Um, let’s see, Baby Boy got sick around the time I did…which really was no fun. Very strange things happened to my facebook page. There was a random charge on one of our credit cards which we got corrected. Ah…that’s about it. Actually, there’s tons more, but Baby Boy is about to break down and I’ve got to wrap things up here.

I’ve missed writing…and glad to be back in the groove! Have a great weekend.

by Heather

Please excuse me if I make this brief. I’m still a little woozy after doing math homework while “goofy” on the cold medication.  Yes. I’m sick! I have the same crud that everyone else has or has had. Just last week I bragged about how I had avoided it and then Karma came back to get me.

I felt a little sick over the weekend after going to the Great State Fair of Texas and the UT/OU Red River Rivalry game. I’m not saying they pushed this bug into overdrive, I’m just saying they probably didn’t help.

The Great State Fair of Texas is a cornucopia of people, amusement rides, stockyard animals and fried food of every invention. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a Fletcher’s Corny Dog smothered in mustard! Personally, I can live without ever trying the fried butter, chicken fried bacon and the dozens of other heat attack producing, artery clogging, IBS triggering foods that come out of the Fair. But I do enjoy the corn dog just once a year. The kids like the giant fluffs of cotton candy.

Enjoying some cotton candy

The fair is expensive. They force you to buy everything with coupons. So you don’t realize that a corn dog is way-too- high or that a spin on the Texas Star is over-the-moon. You just know it’s 6 coupons for the fried food on a stick and 7 to 10 coupons for a ride. You just don’t realize you’re getting ripped off because your senses have been slowed by the grease, swarms of people and the dizzying array of lights. Besides it’s a tradition. So much so, they give school kids a free ticket and a day off to enjoy the big fair. (By the way… the fair raked in $25.7 million dollars on food and rides this year.)

http://www.bigtex.com/  (click here to check out the fair)

Now I’m not completely germ-a-phobic, but I don’t think the trip to the fair coupled with a day of screaming at one of the biggest college football rivalry games did me any favors. I lost my voice and now it feels like someone very large is sitting on my chest. Boo hoo… life must go on.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful family who basically let me checkout for the day on Sunday. I stayed in bed, wiped my nose, coughed and convalesced.

Sure my husband made eggs out of the stir fry pan, left the sink full of dishes, and let the kids scatter toys all over the place.  I didn’t have to look at it, so I didn’t care. Honestly he really didn’t have time to take care of that junk because he was busy taking the kids to the park and lunch. My hero

The very thoughtful family brought me a bowl of soup back from lunch. I was hoping for broth, but they served up cream of broccoli and a big piece of tiramisu (not the most sick friendly food, but still appreciated) My very concerned children patted me on the head, wrote me notes, and gave me a stuffed Labrador puppy to help me feel better. They told me they loved me without any prompting. It was so sweet I damn near cried.

My wonderful friend, Ashley, cleaned up the kitchen and ran the kids to birthday parties while my husband was working.

Sure I felt (and still do) like hell. But I think I’m the most blessed person on earth. My dear sweet husband took great care of me and the kids. My friend stepped in to help. And my kids gave me some really adorable Hallmark worthy moments.

 Hacking and coughing aside… It was even better than chowing down on a Fletcher’s Corny dog smothered in mustard. Besides it didn’t cost a coupon or give me heartburn.

(In case you were curious… that cream of broccoli soup was actually good!)

-H

–by Carla

This week I heard the wonderful news that the recession was over.

You’d think this former news girl would at least post a link or have the mindset to have remembered where she heard such a thing, so here’s a picture instead. I’ve got two gorgeous baby boys under age 2.5 and they both had yucky nose issues this week (their 2nd summer cold in 2 months…ugh) so I’ve been up to my thick Lebanese eyebrows in tissues, hand sanitizer (or as Toddler Boy calls it “hanitizer”), baby Vick’s and gunk stuck in my hair (that last one is pretty normal, actually). So you’ll pardon me for not accurately detailing for you what should have otherwise been the top story on every station across the country: “The Recession Is Over!”.

Um, K.

This news had about as much impact on me as did the news that we WERE in a recession when it broke at the end of last year. Hello, I’d just been laid off. Not a real shocker. But even before then, while I was still anchoring the news, about a year and a half, maybe 2 years ago, we did story after story about this expert or that analyst saying we WERE already in a recession, or explaining why were weren’t ..and so on. I was so tired of those stories. Then when Lehman Brothers failed a year ago and the cards came crumbling down, it was clear to everyone on earth and possibly even some passing aliens just outside our stratosphere that we were in deep doodoo. But the “official” news that we were “actually” “in” a recession came months later. (Once again, if I were a journalist worth my salt, I’d look up that information, copy the link, paste it here and let you know, but I haven’t showered in 2 days, my hair is clumped up in 2 clips and I’m wearing the same thing I had on yesterday. Having 2 sick kids is a total beat down.)

So you can see that a recession “officially” having come to an end will likely mean little or nothing to most of us. It may do a little something something to Wall Street and Wall Street types, but there’s Wall Street and then there’s Main Street…and there are a bunch of houses for sale on Main Street. In fact, the story on the TV news the other night that followed the news that the recession was over was (no shiz) “150 Blockbuster Video employees are losing their jobs as the company closes several stores…” bla bla bla.

The financial experts and analysts and the smart people who do numbers and money for a living may have a sense of what’s going as far as “official” data, but it doesn’t change a thing for me or my family. I’m still a (very happy) full-time stay-at-home-mom now and we’re still living on a cop’s salary…and having a great time adjusting to this little curve ball.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very excited to see what happens in this new period of economic recovery, but I also think we need to be realistic about it and not think that life (those of us for whom life changed, that is) is automatically going to snap back to the way it was..with us gobbling up everything we could possibly cram into our ginormous houses that we could barely afford on 2 incomes and charging every last purchase we made, paying the minimum each month on our credit cards, putting debt out of our minds, leasing new cars every 2 or 3 years and not putting money away for the future.

Wait, come to think of it, I don’t want that life back.

By: Heather

With stars dropping like flies and President Obama talking about national health care, I can’t help but think about the physical and mental health of our nation. And I’ve decided we’re in a nasty little funk y’all. 

Well duh!  You say.

Yes, we’re swimming in a sea of problems. But it could be worse. We’re not being slaughtered for our race or religion, there are no riots and we still have the constitutional right to whine, bitch and moan about the folks running the country. Not bad.

I don’t have a sure-fire answer as to how we get out of this Picasso- like blue period, but I do have one suggestion. Adopt a mantra and stick to it.

Mine is “Hum Sa.”  

My happy place

What makes me an expert? Nothing.  I can just share my experience. Years of negative thinking, lack of sleep, bad eating habits and STRESS have left me physically and emotionally weak.

But I am determined to get stronger and healthier.

As you may know I have a form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis. It’s in my spine, hips and neck. It’s sucks a big, rotten Easter egg. But I manage. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck every morning, so I just have to “ease” into the day.

I can take medication for it. But I don’t. I’m waiting until I can no longer control my pain with exercise, meditation and heat therapy.

I also have three disc in my spine that have turned to dust (that’s degenerative disc disease to you medical types). I have hypothryroidism and have to take synthroid for that or my brain turns into sponge cake.

Last year I suffered numerous other ailments. They’re listed in the next paragraph, but skip it if you like. They’re actually boring… minus the one I caught in Vegas that later made me look like Jay Leno.

Osteopenia (bone thinning), Endometriosis (girly thing), Vertigo (dizziness, not the movie), Bacterial infections (hello rash), Epstein Barr Virus (that’s kinda like mono that comes back to whip ya again) An MRSA staph infection. (that’s the antibiotic resistant kind) I got that in Vegas, so what happens there doesn’t stay there afterall.

By the way… the staph was on my face! One day I had a bump that looked like a nasty zit… the next day I looked like the former Tonight Show host. It later spread to my hand.  It really, really, really hurt. I couldn’t make food for my kids or bathe them without wearing  latex gloves.

Boo hoo..

This is minor crap compared to most people. My sister had cancer. She endured months of chemo and suffered through radiation that nearly burned her leg off. But she’s not complaining. She’s a positive person.

Basically, I’m like an old car. I still start up and putter down the road. But my door sticks, the AC works intermittently and the wipers squeak. It’s just annoying.

I have a point, so just stick with me here. A few months ago I decided that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. So I decided to “heal” myself and adopt a mantra. Hum Sa.

It means “I am that.”

I started out by lying on the floor each night for about five minutes. I would breathe in and say to myself “I am” then I would breathe out and think “that healer.”  I am that healer”  The meditation mantra was free, easy and comforting. Sometimes I change it. I am.. happy, I am… grateful, I am… strong. You get the idea.

I’ve  added exercise (yoga, weights, walking) and better eating habits to my mantra. I feel MUCH better. It’s not expensive either. It just takes a little time and effort. (walking outside is free, eating salad costs less than drive-thru junk)

I also make a grey-green looking shake for my husband and I every morning.

Cheers to good health

Gross maybe. But it really doesn’t taste bad. It’s saved me from my late afternoon sinking spells and given me more energy. It’s actually called “Green Super Food” and it’s packed with veggies, vitamins etc. Pretty much all of the “good stuff” that you’re never going to cook and actually eat.

Ingredients in the shake

I understand now that if I get very little sleep, eat crappy food and consume too much caffeine and alcohol… I’m going to gain weight, weaken my immune system and feel like death warmed over. Sure I have my moments, but I’m trying. I’m also trying to improve my attitude. So when negativity rears itself I turn to my mantra. Hum Sa…

I’m not asking President Obama to make the nation drink  health shakes and do yoga… but I would hope his health care plan would encourage and reward people if they try to take care of themselves. There are no magic pills or government plans that will fix everything. We need to take better care of our mental and physical health. Invest some time in yourself. You deserve it!

I understand there are no simple solutions, but we’ve healed as a nation many times before. Seriously we need a mantra. I’m taking suggestions.

 

By: Heather

I have to be honest mamas and papas. I’m sick of this recession. I’m ready for it to be over. A distant memory. Until then, I thought I would try to “punch it in the face” with a little grade school humor.

“Are you nuts?” you say.

“Certifiably!” I confirm.

That’s what makes me a true Recession Mama. We try to laugh a little when life throws us some serious problems. For some reason, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss comes to mind. I”m not sure why. I can’t explain my nuttiness sometimes.

The Green Eggs and Ham plot, in a nutshell, is as follows: Sam-I-am is trying to get some guy (fluffy creature) to eat Green Eggs and Ham. He doesn’t want them, but he can’t get rid of this pesky Sam.

“Do you like Green eggs and ham?

I do not like them, Sam-I-am. “

The dude (creature) is REALLY annoyed. But Sam-I-am is trying his best to get him to eat Green Eggs and Ham ANYWHERE and with ANYTHING.

“Would you eat them in a box?

Would you eat them with a fox?”

That’s how I feel about the recession. We’re forced to digest this ugly little mess on a daily basis. So why not gobble it down with a side of chuckles.

Anyway, here is my “recession rendition” of the Dr. Seuss story.

Bon Appétit!

Heather

**********

I am recession man.

Recession I am.

That Recession- I- am!

That Recession-I-am!

I do not like that recession-I-am.

Do you like debt and layoffs man?

I do not like them, Recession-I-am.

I do not like debt and layoffs man.

Would you like them here or there?

I would not like them here or there. I want good news from the Fed Chair.

I do not like debt and layoffs man. I do not like them, Recession-I-am.

Would you like to lose your house?

Lose your house with your spouse?

I do not want to lose my house, lose my house with my spouse.

I do not like the recession here or there. I do not like it anywhere.

I do not like debt and layoffs man. I do not like them Recession-I- am.

Would you like them in a theme?

A Madoff Ponzi scheme?

Not in a theme.

Not in a scheme

Not lose my house

Lose my house, with my spouse

I would not like them here or there

I want good news from the Fed Chair

I would not like debt and layoffs man

I do not like them, Recession-I-am.