Nut Allergy Boy

A few months back, the Golfer was eating some mixed nuts out of a can. The Monkey, who has always liked eating peanuts, came up and helped himself to a nut. After putting it in his mouth and swishing it around a little, he decided that he didn't like it and put it back in the can.

And then his face blew up like a balloon.

Within about 5 minutes, one whole side of the Monkey's faced swelled up like...well...I don't even know what to compare it to because I've never seen either of my children have an allergic reaction like that before. We gave him some Benedryl and he was fine, but still...it made us wonder.

So last week while we were in for his 4 year well-child checkup, I asked the doctor to do a nut allergy screening. Little guy was so brave. They took 4 vials of blood and he never cried once.

Yesterday the doctor called with results and they weren't the results that we were hoping for. Long explanation short, the Monkey has minor nut allergies. There weren't any severe reactions, but some minor ones. But as the doctor explained, minor allergies can turn into major ones with continued exposure. So basically, the poor kid just has to stay away from nuts.

Now, staying away from hazelnuts, pecans, and walnuts isn't going to be that hard. But peanuts? Holy crap that's going to be hard! Peanut butter is a daily (yes, daily) staple at our house. We eat peanut butter toast for breakfast, peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, peanut butter crackers for snacks...you get the idea. Telling my 4-year-old that he should only have peanut butter every one in awhile is going to suck.

"It makes you itchy baby. You can't have it."

"But I wanna peanut butter granola bar!" he says as he sratches the side of his face.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very grateful that his allergies weren't more severe. I just wish that he didn't have any allergeries. No one else in our family is allergic to anything (okay, I'm allergic to sulfa drugs but that's pretty easy to stay away from.) I just think it sucks that for the rest of his life he'll have to stay clear of nuts...just in case.

Looking up 'nut allergy' on the computer didn't help, but I did find a funny column in the L.A. Times that certainly put the whole allergy fear into perspective.

I'm glad that his allergy isn't so severe that I have to religiously read food labels. I wouldn't be very good at that. I mean, I know that I would do it if I had to, but having to worry is something is made in the same factory as something with nuts? Well that would be just a big ol' pain in the butt.

So for now, we'll learn to enjoy the Sunflower Butter that I bought at Trader Joe's today (per recommendation of preschool teacher Miss Sandi.) Yummy!

Oldest Boy's Room REDO

With sick kids over the weekend, I was inspired to rearrange the furniture. The Cheese had complained that there wasn't enough room in his room to play. Heaven forbid that he isn't able to escape to his room for some quite time because Lord knows Mama needs that more than he does.

I had originally put a desk in his room, thinking that he would actually do his homework there. But in truth, he always does his homework in the kitchen (don't they all?) So his desk really served no purpose other than a catch-all which drove me nuts.

I moved the desk out and rotated the bed 90 degrees.

Then I headed off to IKEA (not with the sick children mind you.) Gotta love that place. Good stuff for kids--cheap! Works especially well for me since I like to change things up on a regular basis. Bought this cool poster for his wall.


The Cheese kind of has a solar system "theme" to his room: Solar System bedding from Land of Nod, Star Wars bedding from Pottery Barn Kids, and some cool, old globes that I decided to hang from the ceiling as solar system substitute. So I had been looking for some cool art for his wall. Had found some great posters that, by the time they were framed, would cost a fortune. Considering the fact that he won't have a Solar System room forever, I needed something more cost effective. So I saw this poster for $12.99 and thought, "Those could be aliens? Right? Sure!" Plus, I loved this part of the poster:


Something about "Toe Jam Pizza" cracked me up and felt appropriate for a 7 year old's room. Plus it looks like a 7-year-old drew the whole thing.

Then I got busy building the bookshelves. And after an hour of grunting and hammering, this is what I came up with:

Note that I did not spend a lot of time decorating the shelves. I have learned that this is pointless. My child will rearrange them to his liking later, so I've learned the hard way not to waste the time. At least there is "room to grow" with plenty of shelf space for more book and LEGO creations.

Overall, it was a productive "redo" that ended up only costing me $130. Nate Berkus, eat your heart out. (Just kidding, sooooooo just kidding. What I wouldn't give for him to come and "redo" my entire house from top to bottom. Until that day comes, I'm left to my own resouces and bank account. Sigh.)

Weekly Column: Kill Off the Cougars

©Stephenie Freeman

There’s nothing I like better than after putting my boys to bed, grabbing a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Karmel Sutra, and plopping down on the couch for some mind-numbing T.V. I’m not a huge fan of reality shows, but after a long day watching shows like “The Real Housewives of New York” certainly gives me the escape that I’m looking for.

Watching those shows always makes me appreciate my own life. I’ll take my reality over those crazy ladies’ every day of the week and twice on Wednesdays.

Speaking of Wednesdays, reality television just hit a new low with a program called “The Cougar.” In a regurgitated reality show format similar to “The Bachelor” this mother of four, Stacey, will have the opportunity to date 20 eligible bachelors that are half her age. Of course Cougar Stacey, who is 40-years-old, says that she “wants to prove that age is simply a number.”

Ah, spoken just like a true cougar looking for a nice, young kill.

The whole “cougar” phenomenon makes my stomach hurt. Personally, I don’t get the appeal of labeling yourself as a cougar or any other kind of animal. Animal labels for people are rarely good: dogs, pigs, snakes, jackasses are all used as labels and are never, ever seen as a good thing.

A young family friend who’s in college mistakenly called me a cougar once. Instead of being flattered, I was extremely offended. Instead of thinking “Hey, I’ve still got it,” all I could think was, “How old does he think I am?” or even worse “How old do I look?” He’s lucky I didn’t kill him since that’s what cougars do—devour young men when they least expect it.

Maybe it’s because I am the mother of two boys who will be dating young girls that makes me hate the whole cougar craze. Please note that I said “girls” and not “women.” I guess I’m just old fashioned, but I want my boys to fall in love with girls who are just as immature and silly just like they are. I want my boys to bring home a girl who looks to me as a possible role model, not someone who wants to reminisce about the pop culture of the 1980’s.

“Guess who’s coming to dinner, Mom? It’s your hot, newly-divorced friend from the Junior League! You remember her? She’s the one with the son just a little bit older than I am.”

There I go again, getting all tacky about an older woman dating someone who’s barely old enough to legally buy a nice bottle of red wine. Oh, but what am I saying. A 21-year-old boy (the youngest of Cougar Stacey’s prey) wouldn’t be buying wine; a keg of beer maybe, but never a bottle of wine.

And I’m certainly not saying that you have to be divorced to be labeled as a cougar. I think the only requirements are being single and possessing a new-and-improved sex drive. That and a platinum card since you’ll probably be the one paying for dinner.

I liked it better in the good old days when the women were the ones being hunted. I think being a cougar in the dating world goes against the laws of nature. Wild cougars prowl and stalk the weakness prey at the bar—I mean jungle—until they finally go in for the kill, usually sometime right before last call. I tried to find more information about cougars on the Internet, but when I Googled the word all I got were links to websites like DateACougar.com and AARP.org.

I decided to watch the show regardless of my hardened feelings towards the subject. I watched as the cubs (what the twenty-something boys are referred to as) arrive on a party bus as Cougar Stacey tells the camera, “I'm in my prime, they're in their prime, so not only is that connection outside the bedroom, it's inside the bedroom as well!”

Two seconds later the T.V. was off and the Ben and Jerry’s was securely back in the fridge. I headed upstairs to lock my cubs in their bedrooms for the next twenty years.

I’ll let them out when all of the cougars are safely on the endangered species list.

Design Blogger Envy

I'm not as cool as I want to be and it's killing me.

I visits blogs like here and here and here and I want to stop everything that I'm doing and adopt their style through some sort of computer osmosis.

These ladies have taste. They have an eye for beautiful things and I kill to be able to see the way they see things. Better yet, I'd kill to have their decorating style. I find myself looking around my house and not liking what I see and I hate feeling that way because I am all about finding contentment and being satisfied with what you have and who you are.

But there's something about these bloggers and their lovely sites that make me what to change things up, reinvent my style. Maybe it's the kitchen madness spilling over into the rest of the house--I'm not sure. Perhaps has to do with the fact that I've gotten so used to moving every 12 months that I'm itching for a change.

Either way it doesn't matter. I simply want to spend the weekend crawling into these bloggers' brains and finding out where they find/come up with their ideas. I want to make my own headboard like this:

{instructions can be found at pinkwallapaper.blogspot.com}

Looks like a great weekend project to me! Now if I only knew where she got that fabric...

My Latest Headache: The Kitchen Remodel

I feel like I'm living in purgatory. I'm right between where I never want to return and where I hope to be and it's weird.

Let me explain. Exactly one year ago (take a week or two) we moved into our new house. We had lived in 2 different townhouses (i.e., large apartments) for 2 years with half of our belongings in storage in a state 1,300 miles away. So finally being able to buy a new house, a house with a great layout and tons of potential, was fantastic.

We love our new house and have worked hard over the last year to make it a home. I'm an okay decorator--I've done a decent job I think--but there are still so many things that we still want to do to it. Major things. Major things like totally remodeling the kitchen and designing and entirely new backyard. Like any good decorating issue, the problem has been money--there just isn't enough to do everything I want to do exactly when I want to do it.

I hate that.

So I've had to wait and be patient--neither of which I am very good at. However, there are times when it is good to wait, especially when it comes to a remodel or major decorating job. It forces you to do lots of searching and research for what you want to do.

Which is why I am in purgatory. But heaven is just within my grasp. This summer we are going to start our major kitchen remodel and I couldn't be more excited. What's wrong with my kitchen you ask? Well, nothing really, except there is nothing about it that I would have ever picked out. It doesn't feel like my kitchen and for a room that I spend the majority of my time in, well, I want it to feel like I belong there.

So I've been a good girl, doing all of my research, deciding exactly what I want to do. If money were no object the job would be easy. But when you are trying to stay within a budget and save where you can, well it gets a little trickier. You have to make choices and let me tell you, there are a lot of them out there. Add in the fact that you would like to try to use as many eco-friendly products as possible and you've got quite a project on your hands.

Somehow I've let the vast possibilities get the best of me. There are so many different things that I could do or would like to do that I am having trouble deciding. The good thing is that I am blessed with a husband that wants to make me happy (within reason) and pretty much leaves all of the decision making when it comes to the house up to me. (That won't be the case when we start the backyard remodel next.)

Now it's time to start pulling the trigger and making some decisions on what I want so we can get an idea of what we'll be spending. I am further blessed that I have an extremely handy husband that will be doing most of the remodeling himself, saving us a ton of money on labor costs. So where do I want to spend my money? I want this to be the kitchen that I love for the next 15 years (FYI--in 15 years the kids will be gone and we'll be moving to the beach, thank you) so I want to make good choices that I will still love later on down the road.

So basically I'm trying not to let my head explode with ideas and possibilities. If I could just hand him the picture and say, "Do this" then everything would be fine.

photo courtesy of discourseanddesign.blogspot.com

My soapbox: Would you turn this gift down?

I read an article in the opinion section of the Sunday paper about the new First Dog, Bo. Yep, the new pet has already made it to the opinion page. (Sighing, shaking of head, rubbing of temples...)The writer of the piece was complaining about how the Obamas missed a wonderful opportunity to set an example for adoption. According to the writer, the Obamas had missed the boat. Oh how disappointing it was that they didn't lead by example, the author said. Oh the missed opportunity for the photo op of the First Family could have had picking out a new puppy at a shelter. Blah, blah, blah. And so on and so forth.

So I'm sitting there with my coffee thinking, why do we care? Why did this writer waste time writing about this, and more importantly, why am I wasting time reading it? They finally got a dog for their daughters. Hooray for them!

The Obamas never made any promises about getting a shelter dog. I can vividly remember the president answering a reporters question about getting a dog. He said that they would like to get a shelter dog, but the first priority was to their daughter's allergies. Makes sense to me. There's simply no need get all riled up about it enough to write an opinion piece. It's not like the dog came from a puppy mill. It was a gift from an important family friend.

I get it, I do. We have Freddie, a shelter dog, who is the best dog we've ever owned. I totally think that people should consider adopting a dog before buying one if it works for your family. But let me tell you if Senator Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate, wanted to give me this cute dog, there would be no way in hell that I would turn him down.

Would you?

"Oh, no thank you Senator. I know that you are dying of brain cancer and were a tremendous supporter of my presidential campaign, but we don't want your gift. Thanks, but no thanks."

Yeah, right. If Bo showed up on your doorstep, would you turn him away? I don't think so.

photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov

I'm excited for the Obama girls. The opinion writers of the world need to find something more interesting to write about.

And that's all I've got to say about that...

Weekly Column: The Big Cut

©Stephenie Freeman

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was holding my breath.

“Okay, Mom. You ready?”

Due to the breath holding, I found I was unable to speak. I simply nodded.

All I heard was the “snip” of the scissors. I felt a lump forming somewhere in my throat and was embarrassed by the amount of emotion that was bubbling up seemingly out of nowhere.

I mean, it was just a haircut. No big deal. Right?

Wrong. When your baby is getting all of his curls cut off, life feels like it will never be the same.

The Monkey had had a haircut before, but it had always been just a trim. We had already had the ceremonial “first haircut” where I had received the lock of his baby hair for the scrapbook. I had made it through the whole process, camera in hand, with no emotion whatsoever.

Some babies are born with lots of hair, but not my Monkey. He was just about as bald as they come. When I held him for the first time, it was his cue bald head that I smelled and kissed and rubbed my cheek against. I bonded with his bald head right away. I would have been just fine if his head had stayed bald forever or if not forever, at least through his preschool years.

Lucky for me, his hair was slow to grow. Over time it grew into a surfer boy style—blond with just enough curl and shagginess to give him that “I just stepped off the beach” look—so we were able to get away with only a trim for the first four years of his life.

Recently things had started to change. After my husband asked me if I was going to do anything about his mullet and the dentist calling him a girl three times, I decided that I had put it off long enough.

I walked into the salon feeling that I was finally prepared for the Big Cut until the stylist asked, “You sure Mom? Ready for the big boy cut?”

I couldn’t help myself. My hormones started to ooze out of my pores and I felt the urge to scream. “No, I’m not okay! He’s enrolling for Pre-K, can sing the whole alphabet without skipping any letters, counts to 10 in Spanish, and eats with real utensils. Now this? This is all moving too fast! I’m not ready. I’m just not ready!”

But that’s not what came out of my mouth. Instead, I just smiled, nodded, and held up a copy of Us Weekly to whimper behind.

There’s something about the big boy haircut that changes things. It’s a sudden reality shift. The world stops rotating and everything you knew feels different. Somewhere deep inside, my uterus began to ache. Your baby is becoming a big boy.

I hadn’t had this reaction with my first son. A haircut was just a haircut and aside from his projectile vomiting anytime the stylist got near his head with a pair of scissors it was really no big deal.

This was different. This was my baby. My last baby. And here I was purposely turning him into a big boy. I felt like reaching inside my body and untying my fallopian tubes in a preposterous attempt to get those bald-headed baby moments back.

I’ll admit, when it was all said and done he looked pretty darn cute and even though he had abruptly aged right before my eyes, I could still see my baby hiding somewhere inside. I relaxed and tipped the stylist not nearly enough for putting up with the two of us.

The Monkey sat admiring himself in the mirror, obviously pleased with the change. It made me feel better knowing that even though I felt like my left arm had been cut off my son was okay with the transformation. There was a sudden lunge as the world started to rotate again.

Now if I can just keep him from growing so he’ll stay just the right size to still fit perfectly in my lap, everything will be just fine.

Happy Earth Day!

At the Earth Day Festival...

We got free baby trees to take home and plant...


We met Smokey the Bear (who knew that he was even still around)...

We decorated pots and planted seeds (flowers and green beans)...

Made noise makers out of recycled materials...

We even made some creative abstract art from ordinary trash (a piece of cardboard, a tunafish can, a paper towel roll, a bottle cap, some paint, two rubber bands, and a few pipe cleaners.)

It was a lovely day to be outside.

Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.
~George Carlin

The Devil is in the pantry.

The Easter candy in our house is really starting to piss me off. I've been so damn good for the last 3 1/2 months and now temptation has landed in my pantry in the form of a Reese's peanut butter egg.

It's easy to avoid sugar when it's not in the house which is exactly why I threw it all out when I gave up sugar in January. I was able to make it through 2 birthday cakes and Valentine's Day without so much as a taste. But now, for whatever reason, I'm having a flippin' hard time with all of the chocolate bunnies lying around.

Chocolate has always been my weakness. It's a family curse. As a little kid my mother was know as Chocolate so naturally when I came along I was given the name Little Chocolate.

I love any and all kinds of chocolate: milk, dark, white, semi-sweet, I love it all. I love it with nuts, in a brownie, poured over ice cream. I don't care what form it takes, just put it in a IV and give it to me straight.

The chocolate in my pantry has been talking to me. Come on, it whispers. One little teensy, weensy bite won't hurt. No ones looking. No one will know. Come on. Yeah, that's it. Closer...closer...closer. Yes! Hello, Mama!And yes, I'll admit it. I've slipped up and enjoyed a chocolate egg or two. All of the other candy? The jelly beans, the Peeps, the Twizzlers? Nope, none of those bother me. But the chocolate? Yeah, I just can't handle the chocolate being in the house.

So here's my plan. I'm just gonna go ahead and eat all of it and then it will be gone and I won't have to worry about it. Sounds about as smart as an alcoholic drinking all of the booze in the house. Yesterday I tried to throw out the chocolate, but got caught by the Candy Police (i.e., the Monkey.)

"No, no Mommy! That's Easter Hunt candy," he yelled as he grabbed the bag out of my hand.

So there it sits. In my pantry. Just waiting for me to open the door and take a bite.

Have I mentioned that I HATE BEING ON A DIET AND I DON'T MEAN TO YELL BUT ALL I WANT IS ONE OF THOSE DAMN CHOCOLATE MARSHMALLOW BUNNIES! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

According to the scale in my bathroom, yes. It is.

Weekly Column: Fly Me to The Moon

©Stephenie Freeman

I’ve always hated flying. Not only does it scare me (it’s that whole not-being-in-control thing), but it also tends to make me feel sick to my stomach. Weak stomachs and high turbulence don’t mix. I’ve thrown up more times in the Will Rogers Airport than I care to remember.

Adding children to the mix has only made me hate it even more. If the fear of death and vomiting weren’t enough of a reason for me to detest air travel, I now have a new reason—the fear of irritation.

Flying with children always reminds me of that old Bill Cosby sketch where he tells the story of this little boy kept telling everyone onboard how old he was, but the reason that everyone knew his name was because his mother chased him all over the plane saying, “Stop that Jeffery! Come here Jeffery! Sit down Jeffery! Jeffery! JEFFERY!”

It is my greatest flying fear that I will suddenly turn into Jeffery’s mother once we hit a certain altitude or even worse, that I will have two little Jefferys on my hands.

You see, I am a people pleaser. I want anyone and everyone to be happy with me, to immediately like me, especially strangers. I don’t like confrontations and try to avoid any situation that might get emotionally messy, which explains why traveling on a airplane with two young children tends to make my blood pressure go up. I know that it’s practically inevitable that we will make it through the day without irritating someone.

From the moment we unload our bags onto the curb, I worry that we are annoying someone. There’s plenty to be aggravated about air travel nowadays without adding kids and a stressed-out mother to the mix. So I try to be pro-active and defuse the situation ahead of time as much as I can.

May I suggest a strong Valium and a double-shot of Benadryl can do a lot to ease the tension? Oh, and the kids can take something to help them get through the day too if necessary.

We recently flew home to Oklahoma for Spring Break. Before we were even off the ground in L.A. I was pulling out everything I could to keep my little travelers happy. The guy sitting across the aisle from us started to laugh as the Monkey started gnawing on a Butterfinger candy bar that was as long as his arm.

“You not worried about the sugar rush that’s soon to follow?” the traveler asked me.

I just smiled and laughed a light-hearted mommy laugh in hopes of giving him the false impression that I knew exactly what I was doing. I hadn’t planned on the sugar high or sugar crash that a king-sized candy bar was sure to bring. I also hadn’t planned on the melted chocolate mess that was covering my child two minutes later. An entire package of wet wipes and two candy bar wrappers later, all eyes were on us. I suddenly felt like throwing up and we hadn’t even taken off yet.

To make matters worse, my travel bag-of-tricks was only filled with trouble. Nothing that I had brought along to entertain my children was working. They fought over the DVD player. They whined about the lost LEGO pieces down their seats. They left a trail of Goldfish crumbs from their seat all the way to the plane’s bathroom.

The whole time I just sat there waiting for someone to roll their eyes or make a tacky comment, but no one ever did. Maybe it was that third shot of Benadryl that left me seeing things unclearly, but it turns out that the only person on the plane that was irritated with my children was me.

As we landed and started the long walk down the aisle, I held my breath as a fellow passenger started to speak.

“Your boys were such good little travelers!”

Maybe it was her compliment or perhaps it was the Benadryl, but I passed out in the middle of the aisle from the shock.

As people stepped over me to exit the plane, the only one irritating my fellow passengers was me. But I didn’t mind. I thought it was quite an improvement from throwing up all over the terminal.

Weekly Column: Not-so Picture Perfect

©Stephenie Freeman

I am convinced if it weren’t for these weekly columns, there will be very little record that I existed past the age of 29.

The other day while I was busy wasting time on Facebook, I decided that it was time to update my profile picture. Now for those of you who haven’t succumbed to the pressure to join Facebook, your profile picture is small, thumbnail sized photo of yourself that everyone sees when they first look at your page.

When I first created my page, I put up a picture that included me with my whole family. I used this picture for two reasons: 1) I looked halfway decent, and 2) there wasn’t anything else remotely acceptable to choose from. After searching and searching through my computer files for a decent picture of myself, I couldn’t find one. Turns out, a picture of me, looking decent, by myself, past the age of 29 (the year my first son was born) simply doesn’t exist.

It’s like when you first get married and all of the frames around your house include pictures of your puppy dog. Then once the kids arrive, the pictures of the puppy get stuck in a shoebox and shoved in the top of the closet. Once the babies arrive, pictures of anything or anyone else cease to exist.

It all starts out innocent enough. In the front of our photo albums you’ll see pictures of my husband and I on our honeymoon, my husband and I in front of our first house, my husband with his arms wrapped around my pregnant belly. The beginnings of a happy family all caught on film.

But slowly as you move through the album, it is as if I became the Incredibly Disappearing Woman. It’s as if the older I’ve gotten the less detectable I am on film. There’s Mommy with the new baby. There are Mommy’s arms holding the new baby. There are Mommy’s hands next to the baby. Until finally, there’s only the baby left in the picture and Mommy has completely disappeared.

Part of reason that there aren’t many pictures of me is due to the fact that I am always the one holding the camera. This is no big surprise considering that I am the one who remembers to bring the camera and then remembers to pull it out during the important photo-opt times. If it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be any pictures of anyone or anything.

We’ve been blessed to go on many family vacations, but according to our family photos, you’d never know that I was even there. I can just see my boys thumbing through the family photos one day after I am long gone.

“Here’s Dad with us on the beach. Here’s Dad helping us making S’mores while camping. Look! I can see the edge of a fingernail in this picture of Dad riding with us on the teacups at Disneyland. Maybe Mom was there after all.”

The other reason that I’m not in any family pictures is because I usually don’t want my picture taken. My first instinct is to avoid the camera lens at all cost. Seeing bad pictures of myself only reminds me of the twenty pounds that I need to loose or how I no longer look as young as I feel. Luckily, it’s pretty darn easy to make those unflattering mommy pictures quickly disappear, never to return again.

That is until you sudden need one for your Facebook page and you realize that of all of the 24,378 pictures on your computer, there are only seven of you, three of which are of you taking a bite of something and the remaining four involve you trying to hide behind someone or something.

In order to try and improve on this problem, I did look on the Web for some tips on being more photogenic. They recommended things like wearing clothes that suit you, getting rid of your double chin by resting your head on your hands, sticking your neck out like a turkey, and smiling with your eyes. It was like a bad Olan Mills picture just waiting to happen.

I was laughing so hard when I read those suggestions; I wished someone had taken my picture.

Weighty Issues: Week 12

12 Weeks and I'm still at it.

Last week, I ran 4 miles in record time. Yesterday, I hiked 5 miles (hiking is big out here in California) running most of the way. Granted, it was downhill, but still I ran for 3 out of the 5 miles. And I wasn't dying afterwards! That's huge!

Why is all of this so impressive? 12 weeks ago, I couldn't run to the mailbox without huffing and puffing. Yes, I was that out of shape. I guess that I really didn't realize it. I'm far from a perfect working out machine, but I'm slowly getting there. I'm even considering finding some 5K's to do. Crazy!

So I treated my self yesterday to a little shopping. My only real need was a new bra (have even gone down a size in that too) but of course I ended up buying more than just a bra. What fun is it to go shopping and only come home with a white cotton bra? Yeah, not much fun at all.

Yesterday, I bought my first pair of expensive jeans. It took all that I had to walk to the counter with them. I don't think I had even paid more than $50 for a pair before. But I had earned it.

And let me tell you, those things were like putting on butter! I've never actually put butter all over my legs, but I have a feeling that putting on these jeans is pretty close to the feeling. And they don't lie when they tell you that expensive jeans make your butt look better. I don't know how or why or if it's just because I've spent so much money that I'm forcing myself to see things differently, but I swear my butt really does look better!

Here's my other Weighty Issue that I want to discuss. The more I work out and the more my body shapes up the more that I want to show it off. I'm not talking like stripper type show it off. I'm just talking about wearing clothes that show off my hard work and attractive features.

So here's my question: Why do people care so much that Michelle Obama shows off her toned arms? Does it make her less effective as a First Lady because she chooses at times to show her arms? Yeah, I don't think so.

Let's face it people. It's the 21st Century and women have arms. It's not like she's wearing something awful and embarrassing. She's always dressed in a very classic and classy way. Frankly, I'm happy to finally have a first lady that doesn't look or dress like AN OLD LADY!


I love her! She's a smart woman, a fantastic mother, and a wonderful wife who shops at J.Crew (love it!) and isn't afraid to have her own style. You know as well as I do, if you had pretty arms like her you'd be showing them off too. And if you say you wouldn't you're lying.

I'm off to do some tricep dips right now. You go girl!

The Original Onry