Life With Frenchie

I’ve come to that conclusion. Well, it’s nothing new really. I have always been overweight. I got down to an acceptable weight over the past two years, but over the past year, it’s been going back up. I can’t seem to find the time I used to have to go to the gym and get active. My eating has gotten worse. I just don’t know what to do anymore! I think I just cracked the code to the whole Weight Watchers program, so that doesn’t work for me — I can figure out how to stay within my points yet still get more fat and junk than I should have in a day. I tried Jenny Craig at one point and that worked, for a while. It’s just a really expensive program when you still have to buy food for other people in the household. Finally, I also did L.A. Weightloss. That also worked really well, but they didn’t listen to me at my sessions. I told them from the beginning that I went to the gym every day and was running, on average, 4-5 miles a day, lifting weights, taking classes, and working with a personal trainer. When I got to a plateau, they wanted me to pay more money to continue. Again, expense became an issue. I’m at the point that I don’t know what to do anymore…well, I know what to do, but actually being able to do it an being successful at it is another story.

Any suggestions?

Anyone who’s known me for any length of time (like 5 minutes) knows that I am not the “arts & craft” type of mom. I break into a cold sweat whenever I get near a pair of scissors and glue! Well, this weekend MM and I attended a Publix Apron’s Cooking School and carved a pumpkin.

If I ever carved a pumpkin as a young child, I don’t remember it. After yesterday’s experience, I’m suspecting it is one of those suppressed memories. You know, when something so awful happens to you, you just completely put it out of your mind? Pumpkin carving would definitely fit into that category!

I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t even cut the hole in the top of the pumpkin. After a good 5-minute struggle (and plenty of looks of pity from the surrounding families in their “cute” matching jack-o-lantern t-shirts), the top was finally off. Who knew that was the easy part?? Before we could even begin carving, we had to gut the pumpkin. I am not exactly the dainty type, but cleaning out the inside of this pumpkin nearly made me gag!I think that took us another 30 minutes alone. But, finally, we (read I) prevailed and Mr. Pumpkin had innards no longer.

Oh wait? You mean that’s not the end??? Nope! Apron’s was nice enough to provide us (included in our $40 fee) with a pumkin carving stencil kit. MM and I settled on a lovely window scene. There was a cat sitting next to a jack-o-lantern with a spider hanging down. It had a “2 pumpkin” difficulty rating. Piece of cake! Little did I know that meant “master carver”! Still, we forged ahead.

As with any carefully planned outing with mother and daughter….this one nearly ended in tears - MINE! The annoy– er, I mean lovely– families with their matching clones were busily creating masterpieces. One kid was busy prancing about announcing that, whilst I was still trying to tape the stencil to our pumpkin, his family had actually finished carving theirs (I figured out what the guts of the pumpkin were meant for!). Nevermind the annoying munchkins, MM & I had work to do!

After carefully marking the outline of our carving we actually began to cut. Carefully, I cut through the detail and sawed out the first part of a window pane. I pushed on the piece to let the light through and…NOTHING HAPPENED! Nobody told us that it was nearly impossible to actually get the pieces to come out of the pumpkin! Still, we forged ahead!

It took quite a while, and I don’t think my fingers will ever be right again, but we managed to get our pumpkin carved and we weren’t the last ones there! The cat actually looks like a cat. Our jack-o-lantern within the jack-o-lantern looks snaggled tooth, even for a jack-o-lantern. And can you call a spider a spider if it doesn’t have eight legs???

Well, we managed to get it home without dropping it and it is now sitting proudly by our front door.

What did I learn from this experience? I’m promptly converting to whatever religion does not endorse pumpkin carving for Halloween!

Woo hoo!!!!! Dawgs win! 42-30. I am so happy!

I was very satified with yesterday’s game. The Dawgs got off to a good start with an early touchdown. The entire team came out to celebrate, gladly taking the penalty so that they could show Florida that they would not be intimidated! On top of that, they got an unsportsmanlike penalty, both assessed on the kickoff. Florida did answer with a touchdown, but the Dawgs would not go quietly. They made the Florida offense work for their 30 points.

I was very happy to see the redshirt freshman, Knowshon Moreno, have a very solid performance against the Gators. He had 33 carries for 188 yards against the Gator defense. It’s promising to see this young talent on this team as they have been working hard to not lose their grip in the SEC over the past few seasons after the amazing senior class, which included David Greene & David Pollack, of 2004 left UGA.

Now, I will be on edge for the remainder of the season as it is now UGA and UT atop the SEC East. Unfortunately, UGA lost to UT earlier this season, so UT would win the East if they were tied at the end of the season! So, I hope that UGA wins over Kentucky and Auburn while Tennessee loses to at least one of either Kentucky or Vanderbilt. Oy! I feel an ulcer coming on.

So, last night was the Fall Festival at my daughter’s , henceforth referred to as MM (Mini-Me), school. I got roped into volunteering. Wisely, I chose to volunteer for set up duty. I ended up selling tickets during the first half hour of the festival. They sold tickets at $0.50 each, or 22 for $10. During the 30 minutes that I worked, we turned in $300 in $20 bills TWICE. This does not count the $1s, $5s, or $10s that we had in the cash box. This also does not include the “bouncies” that had their own ticket table at $5 per wristband! Methinks the school brought in quite a bit of money last night!

As a part of the festival, they also had a theme basket Chinese Auction, food, and talent show. MM participated in the talent show and played her guitar. Unfortunately, my camera is still new, so my picture of MM did not turn out all that well, but I still caught her performance for posterity.

I am very proud of her! She did very well! She has been playing guitar for little over two years now. We recently bought her a new, full-size guitar and she’s moved up to combining chords and notes. For her piece, she played My Country ‘Tis of Thee. She was a bit nervous, but still — she did a great job. GO MM!!!

As for the “food” at the festival, it left much to be desired! I was very happy to see that they had pretzels for sale since that is one of my most favoritist foods! I was, to say the least, disappointed when I was handed a soggy, still frozen in the middle, pretzel in exchange for my coveted 3 tickets! I had to settle for sharing some stale nachos and melted, processed cheese. The saving grace was the cotton candy for 1 ticket! We should have brought out the wallets and paid for the cash food - pork BBQ sandwiches and hot dogs. It was at least provided by a local restaurant.

 The games and “rides” were the typical school carnival fare - toss the bean bag into a variety of different holes, guess how many <insert item here> are in the bottle, fish for the prize, mini-golf. The best were the Roller Racers! My boyfriend (El Presidente - I’ll explain later!) and I even got in on the act!

All in all, it was a great night and a surprisingly fun start to the Halloween season!

The one thing I miss about living in the north, or even just a bit further north in Georgia, is fall weather. It’s not that I don’t like the beautifully warm weather that we have here on the Gulf Coast, but the fall weather is what makes college football Saturdays perfect! There’s nothing better than a cold, dreary Saturday when I’m “stuck” inside and od’ing on college football ALL DAY LONG!

Today is the ultimate Saturday for me because it’s the World’s Largest Cocktail Party! Although I love my beloved Bulldogs, I am a realist. I am not kidding myself and saying that they’re going to blow Florida away this year. I am holding out hope though!

In preparation for this glorious day, we picked up a couple of six packs of Stella. We have our tortilla chips, avacados, salsa, and sour cream. To begin the day, we’re having a couple of Bloody Mary’s and bacon egg and cheese sandwiches.

 Aaaaaaaaaaahh!! Tell me I’m not in heaven!

So, this young kid (Genarlow Wilson), a few years back, was convicted of “aggravated child molestation for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl” at a party. After many court appearances and appeals and lots of outcry against the sentence (even the girl’s parent(s) spoke up in support of the young man), a new law was put in place that made the crime a misdemeanor that only carries a 1-year maximum sentence - as opposed to the mandatory 10-year sentence with no parole that was in place before. Lawyers and others have been fighting to keep the young man in jail and uphold the prior conviction. Personally, I don’t understand why everyone is so adamant that this guy stays in jail. He is not a child molestor, or sexual predator. He was simply a young kid with one thing on his mind. What teenage boy isn’t that way?!?! I do not have any real vested interest in this whole ordeal, but I must admit that I was happy to see that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. Wilson and ordered him freed from jail, overturning his conviction.

So I walked in the Breast Cancer 3-Day this past weekend. I did much better this year than last. I don’t think I’ll lose any toenails this year, my legs are fine, the only problem I had were sore, swollen feet. So, four days later, you’d think they’d be fine? WRONG! My brilliant self decides to get back in the gym and keep on track with my Couch-to-5K Running Plan. As long as I was walking or running, it actually was okay. It was once I was in the car that the pain started shooting through my feet!! MAN! Remember that scene from Misery where Kathy Bates’ character breaks James Caan’s character’s feet by hitting them with the sledgehammer??? I was actually hoping for that yesterday evening. OW! Well, I guess I’d better give the tootsies a rest today cause I’ll be back in the gym this afternoon.

So, I’ve taken the plunge — I’ve decided to start a blog. Now that I’m officially old, I’m trying to keep up with the youngsters! Thanks to Colleen for helping me get it set up.

I have tons of thoughts running through my head just dying to get out. But one thought, above all others, is the loudest and winning - MY FEET HURT! I just learned a very painful (literally) lesson. After walking nearly 60 miles, in 3 days and then not really staying off your feet over the next 4 days, it’s not a good idea to go running…no matter how good you feel!

I’ll start adding, updating, and getting this blog going over the next few days and you can learn all about Life with Frenchie!