4-Day Weekend

Well, it's the 4 day weekend that for the past three years has been canceled (did you know that the spelling of "cancelled" has been changed to "canceled"? Why they changed this I'll never understand but they did so now I never know whether to go with the old spelling for people who don't know it's been changed or use the new spelling for correctness and run the chance of people thinking I don't know how to spell). For the past three years we've had to use this four day weekend to make up snow days but this year we actually got to have the 4 day weekend, so you'd think I would have done something really fun for the break, right? Umm, no.

Katie even declared that we are boring today. She's right. We are boring. I keep thinking we should be having a lot of people going in and out, barbecuing going on, busyness happening, people throwing their head back with laughter, but they're not. Maybe if I had a husband it would be busier? Maybe he would just be sitting on the couch next to me though because...after all...I'm boring. I should be a fun, smart, resourceful mom like Michelle Duggar or Kate Gosselin providing fun activities, knowing where all the free exciting stuff is going on right? I don't and if I do know, I don't really want to be there.

We did drive down to my mom's for a day and dropped Mckenzie and her friend off there but then we came home the next day. The drive down was crazy too! Katie brought a friend and drove her own car right behind me all the way but it was like a monsoon out and the traffic was sooo bad! It took an entire hour to get down Hwy. 512 which usually takes at the most 10 minutes. The 2 hour drive to Ocean Shores was turned into a 4 hour drive with poor Katie following me like a little baby bird learning to fly on a really bad day!

Anyway, once we got down there we had dinner, which my mother so graciously made for us, and watched a movie. It was a very nice evening partly because the drive down was so awful that sitting in a cozy house, eating and visiting was very comforting.Anyway, by the next day Mckenzie kept asking me when I was leaving and Katie kept asking me when we were leaving that I thought it might be a good idea if I left. It didn't help that I felt terrible. My head was killing me, I've been wheezing (yes wheezing...just like my mother) all week and I slept wrong so I had a bad kink in my neck. Wow, I was hobbling around not breathing and drinking mullein tea just like my mother. I really shouldn't feel old and decrepit at 42 (oopsy 43), but when I'm sick I'm kind of useless and no fun. After some doctoring from my mother, I started to feel better and thought I might as well drive home while the sun was shining and so I could sleep in my own bed.

So here I am today, home and bored. I've just been watching TV all day. I think I'm addicted and need to cut myself off. Cable is expensive anyway and it wastes too much of my time. I keep thinking what all I might accomplish if I didn't watch TV  in all of my down time. Maybe, I would be a lot smarter because I would read books, or maybe I would finish the quilt I started for Mckenzie nearly a year ago. Maybe my house would be cleaner, my pictures would be organized and scrapbooked, my walls might be painted and we might eat healthier. Maybe I would do more church work. Who knows what all I could get done with the hours I spend watching TV? Be that as it may, I watched TV all day today. What I watched I couldn't really tell you.

Later this morning though, Coy stopped by and we decided to try moving the couch to a new spot. I've been getting worried that one cushion is getting squished already and I've only had the couch for a year and I still owe money on it, so I don't want it getting ruined already! Also, the cushions can't just be traded around because they are all different sizes. The other problem is that the couch is actually a sectional. Sectionals are all hooked together and don't move all that easily. There's really only one way it will fit in a room because it has a long side and a short side and the room doesn't accommodate it in any other position. In spite of all this, I wanted to try moving it, so Coy took it apart and started moving pieces and I couldn't believe the grossness that was underneath! There was so much garbage and dog hair under there. I don't know why I was shocked but I was! I kept hearing exclamations of "Hey, there's my _____!" insert any given missing item. There were things under there we hadn't seen since the beginning of the school year like Katie's ASB card. She's been paying full price for everything since the second day of school! I even found my back scratcher, Easter eggs, bouncy balls, bobby pins and things that we don't even use for example, Jenga pieces. I mean how do these things get down here if we don't even use them? I had no idea the couch was capable of such stealth stealing. It's almost as bad as the dryer! I'll have to keep my eye on it a lot closer.

Consequently, I got the vacuum out to clean up the mess and wouldn't you know it but the belt was broken....so no vacuuming today I thought and we've just exposed this terrible mess and Coy won't be here again to help move the couches around and it really has to be vacuumed today! Not only was it gross under the couches but under the cushions. I was actually surprised it was so hairy under the cushions because we don't allow the dog on the couch but it was pretty bad. Shortly after seeing that the couches also needed vacuumed it occurred to me that I could vacuum with the attachment and I wouldn't need a belt! Problem solved! Even though I was laying around feeling like I couldn't breathe all that well, I started vacuuming with the hose attachment. You realize that you have to bend over scraping the hose back and forth across the floor the whole time? Not fun.

Sooo, the couches are now taken apart and moved so we will start using different cushions. This is the excitement of my 4 day holiday. I moved my couch.

I'm also wanting to lose weight. I started losing weight in January and thought I'd be way ahead of myself this year at this time compared to the last couple of years at this time because I joined the gym and I've been walking to work and I read about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, msg, and other things in processed food from Jillian Michaels. However, I am still in the same spot, weight wise, as I was last year at this time. I didn't go to the gym, I have many legitimate excuses, and I quit walking to work about 3 weeks ago, at just about the same time the weather got a bit nicer, go figure! I also started eating many very bad foods such as-- wafer cookies, ice cream, burgers, soda-- even though I know the dangers. And, I've been eating a lot! I do this every May. I get stressed and I eat more and bad things that seem super fun at the time. I feel like I NEED something fun during May because there's so much going on at work that when I get home I deserve a reward...something that will make my life fun again. Now my weight is suffering. I hate it, but I can't stop eating and the thought of cooking is almost as bad as shooting myself in the head. I don't want to do it. When I get home from work I just want to sit on my couch, watch TV and eat something yummy. I think I'll start writing about this since this is one of my main struggles. If I don't eat healthy I feel physically terrible. When I do eat healthy, I feel like I have a huge hole in my life and there is no fun...nothing to look forward to or to be rewarded with. I can't bear that. Wish me luck.