Image by TILT via Flickr

I’m a bit of a grumpy guss today. I sure hope you don’t mind. I broke my toe one week ago today and the durn thing is killing me!!!

It happened last Wednesday morning as I was getting up to go turn off the alarm in the kitchen. I have to keep the alarm in the kitchen – otherwise I’ll roll over, turn it off, and roll back over. And that would not get three kids off to school!

So I was making my way through the dark house at 5am and ran SMACK into the leg of a wingback chair! And let me tell you what – that sucker hurt!

And that afternoon, just to make sure it was hurting real good – my 120 pound dog STEPPED. ON. IT.

Uh…yeah. That was nice of him, don’t you think?

And really, I was doing a lot better – until I started trying to drive my kids around town. Yep, it’s my right foot, wouldn’t you know? Smack in the middle of busy, busy marching band season!

And the driving is doing something horrible to it. It’s making my foot sore – not my toe, my foot. So I guess, along with breaking my toe, I also jammed my foot. Or something like that.

And while I’m here complaining, I might as well just finish it off. I’ve had to sit in my recliner with my laptop – as opposed to at my desk. My foot just throbs sitting at the desk. Sitting in the bed or the chair with my laptop and working for extended periods – gives me headaches. So yeah, I’ve had headaches for the last several days, as well.

So I’m totally bummed. But I’m not gonna let it get me down. Nope – gonna try and think of good things and do good things anyway. Thanks for letting me ramble on with my grumbles, though, feels good to just get it out!!!

(I was going through broken toe pics on Zemanta to post in here, and they were just all so yucky – but, then, I came across the one I chose! Awww….Nelly with a broken toe! Poor thing! And she is much cuter than pics of human broken toes. Though there was one with a cute pink and black striped cast….)

Just about thirty minutes ago, a MACK TRUCK named “Allergy Attack” came storming through my office. I’m just sitting here, getting my day going, blog posts ready, letters to children written, the whole nine yards – when ….

I get hit by that durned, blasted mack truck allergy attack and am rendered three notches away from completely useless! But – but – I have so much planned for today….ugh…

I could take the allergy pill that 99.9% of the time does NOT work. I could take benadryl and go ahead and go right on past those three notches of usefulness to 78 notches below useless. Zombie Lisa – that’s always fun. A little early for a Halloween gig, though….

So then I got this bright idea to go searching on the web for other remedies to the situation. Are there other remedies? Sure not any I’ve heard of. But hey, let’s keep an open mind and go searching anyway….okay, why not?

And this is the one that I found that intrigued me –

Relief From An Allergy Attack – Yoga Journal

I do love yoga, you know. So I might as well try it out and see what happens – while I’m sitting here putting off entering the Zombie Zone.

So I’m gonna try it – do you think it will work?

(Adorable image on post can be bought at
AllPosters.com I totally want one myself!)

This afternoon, I thought I’d share one of my very favorite TED Talks with you. It’s actually really hard to have a favorite TED Talk, as they are all so fascinatingly interesting. Jill Bolte Taylor’s 18 minutes really had an affect on me, though.

Here is the introduction from the site:

Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.

A horrible experience, for sure, but, what she got out of it – and shares with others, most importantly, the scientific community – is simply amazing.

Ok, so you guys know I just had a birthday, right? Wherein I told you how bomb diggitylicious my kids are? So, I turned 39. Thirty-nine years old. That’s me. Yep. 39. That’s my number. And the funny thing is, I really don’t mind it a bit. I was sort of afraid to say it out loud – and cringed when my brother said it – he was the first one to say the number out loud in direct reference to little ‘ol me. But you know what? When I said it out loud – you know what happened? The same exact thing that happened to me when I turned 27. I discovered that I like the number. I like the age. I like what I think it says about me. Does it really say any of those things I’m thinking it says about me? Who knows – probably not. But I like the way it sounds. So that’s cool.

So where I’m going with all of this hullaballoo – and how we get to my ‘Ultimate Wimpiness’ – is that for some time now I knew I would have a ‘Turning 40′ goal. In fact, I knew the year I turned 30. One of my best friends at the time, a super duper cool chick named Debbie, just happened to be ten years older than I. And she had a ‘Turning 40′ goal. And I just thought that was a really cool thing to do. Her goal was to run a mile, as she had been very busy with child-rearing and homeschooling and had not been running in quite some time. She made it – ahead of time, and ran longer than a mile. I was so proud of her and so uber impressed.

And at that time, I decided that my goal would be….

What the hell is that, you say? Well, let me see if YouTube can just help us out with that one a little bit…

Ok, I found one, here we go:

That is a round-off flip-flop – or a round-off back handspring. It won’t take me long at all to work up to a front handspring, but, the back handspring will be another story. I’m not exactly sure when the last time I actually did one was. I know I took an adult gymnastics class after Shawn was born, but, I’m thinking I’ve done one more recently than that, as well. That could just be my ‘painting the picture’ prettier for myself, though, if you know what I mean. So yeah – I definitely did one in November 1994. LOL Maybe since then, too – but, who knows….

My intentions (darn those things!) were to begin ‘training’ on the day I turned 39. I think that slipped my mind. I didn’t start until two days later. And I was going to start back up with Sparkpeople.com and take baby steps back toward my good weight loss habits of last year. And I thought – ha! I thought I could at least do a few push-ups every day. See, I want to start working my way up in push-ups and then move on to handstand push-ups – because, those are what really give you power and insure you don’t break your freaking neck when flip-flopping over!

I’ve disappointedly discovered, however, that I’m a horrible, horrible wimp. Haha! I did pushups, situps, and what I call ‘supermans’ (and Sparkpeople calls back extensions) on Sunday. I knew my stomach muscles were hurting after that first day and I figured that was from the situps. Well, guess what? I set out to exercise on Monday and started with the pushups – and OH. MY. GAWD. My stomach muscles HURT. SO. BADLY. that I could barely do them. I didn’t even think about the fact that you use your stomach muscles in keeping your back straight during the pushups! And people, I’m only doing FIVE!!!! I did them anyway, and did the other things, as well as some stretching and do you know what????

I actually had trouble sleeping last night, my stomach was so sore! It kept waking me up! What the heck????

I think that means every day, at least starting out here, is not going to be a reality in the ol’ pushups department. What a freaking wimp!! I did two today! *shakes head*

I am definitely going to do something at least – every day. Even if it’s the tiniest little thing – just to keep my mind in the mode of exercising/getting healthy. I’ve actually put back on twelve pounds recently – after my forty pound weight loss last year. Wah! I need to change my ‘weight loss ticker’ on Sparkpeople.com and I haven’t done it yet. I just can’t bring myself to change it.

In conclusion - I turned 39. 39 sounds pretty cool. I’m gonna be 40 next year. (No shit?) And by that time I want to do a round-off flip-flop. I’m doing pushups. They hurt like hell. I got waaaaay off track on my weight loss journey. I’m getting back on track. And that’s that.

Image via Wikipedia

I caved, people. I totally caved. I just could not do it. Staying away from coffee is too hard. I got up this morning and my head was killing me and it was really chilly in here and I just wanted to get back under the covers. There was only ONE way I was staying up and doing my ‘mama get the kids up and out the door’ thing.

And that was coffee.

It’s five in the morning and I’m giving in, thinking, ‘Ah, to heck with it! I can’t do it!’ And then I realized that all of the other times I’ve given up coffee – I never went cold turkey. Oh, the stupidity. Of course not, you fool! *smack self in head*

See, I’m a two-pots-a-day gal, so the wise and friendlier-to-my-head way to handle this whole thing is to just have the first pot and not the second. (And I might also add that hubby drinks one or two cups of that first pot. So that won’t be too bad at all, really, drinking that first pot.)

So that is my rearranged goal now. Do NOT make that second pot! Do NOT make that second pot! Do NOT make that second pot! Okay, okay! I think I’ve got it already!


It’s so funny, and sad, really – I think I might just feel like someone close to me is dying or something. I’ve been kind of mopey ever since I made the decision yesterday to excommunicate the evil bean from my life. I’ve only noticed this from my moods and mopey actions. I actually texted hubby yesterday and asked him, ‘When are you coming home? I miss you.’ If you know us, you know that sappy only comes on birthdays and holidays. Not on just regular Wednesdays.

I also asked him to get me some more diet Cokes, to make sure I had some on hand. There was no way he could go yesterday, so I went this morning before work/school. I was walking through the store thinking of what I could buy to ‘pamper’ myself and take care of myself and make sure that I felt taken care of and all other kinds of goofy BS! Then I realized – “Geez, Lisa! You think somebody died, don’t you?!” *shakes head*

I decided, well hey, let’s just go with this. If this is what it takes to get OFF of the evil bean and get me feeling better. So I went and bought myself some Gerbera daisies!

Pretty, aren’t they? And besides that – there is a shoulder bag that I am just dying to buy myself that has a Gerbera daisy on it, but, I’ve been spending too much money lately! I want to hold off on that, even though it is very reasonably priced at only $21! I’ll try to remember it and get it in a few months or something. The site is so gorgeous – you will fall in love with the things there, if you are a big flower person! Check it out – the one I want is the orange Gerbera from the Harold Feinstein collection. Very pretty!

The strangle hold you have on me, Coffee, is just not good. It is just not a good thing. We can’t go on like this. I love you then I hate you then I love you. But you? You are another story altogether: You make me think you love me, then you hate me, then you make me think you love me…..

And my belly and I are just about through with your hijinks and your shenanigans. Your disruption of my life is no longer worth it to me. I’m afraid, though, Coffee – that I can’t live without you.

Can I Quit You?

You are my cigarettes. You are my heroin. You are my hard-to-quit-asshole boyfriend.

I always thought I was so blessed that cigarettes were so easy for me to quit. Mark and I started talking about procreating, so I started tapering down and within about three months – ciggies were gone. Just gone. No big deal. There was no white-knuckle craving. There was no depression. There was no ‘Oh My Gawd! I just can’t do this!’ It was basically easy. The hardest ciggy to give up was the bedtime ciggy and I hung onto that little bugger for a few weeks. And then POOF – just let it go, too. No biggie.

But you, Coffee – you’re different. Oh yes, you have your claws in me but deep.

The hardest two cups of you, Coffee, to give up, will be the morning cup and the late afternoon cup. That is when I am next to completely powerless to ignore your conniving, manipulative advances. I simply must do this, though. I’m sorry, Coffee. We have to part ways.

OMG, Can I Do This?

I need a plan. I need fail-safe pillows of back-up options to catch me in my super weak moments.

• Diet Coke hurts me way less than you, Coffee. I will have to make sure to always have some on hand.
• And I will enlist my children’s help – to distract me and keep me occupied when the cravings hit.
• I was planning on getting my flowers and vegetable seeds planted today for a little bit of indoor growth before I move them outside. So I need to make sure I get that started, so I can have that to fuss with when I start to jones.
• Oh! And I haven’t done any crocheting since we’ve been in Alabama. I can definitely start some crocheting. I’ve been wanting a new phone cozy. And maybe a new small purse.
• I’ve just brought up my old scrapbooking gear to put together with that awesome package of scrapbooking gear I won from that cool blogger chick. I can get started dabbling in that!
• God knows I am, as usual, in the middle of reading too. many. books. at. once. I can grab one, go out back and sit in the warm spring air and READ! One of my very favorite activities!
• And I need to get back to taking walks and even just dancing around in front of the TV while I’m watching. I have been wanting to do that anyway, but, the other day I realized – Oh Em Gee! They are going to walk. our. butts. off. in Washington DC!!! I better get ready for that!! (Yes! I’m going to DC! In May – isn’t that awesome?? One more reason not to have constant stomach problems! Not to mention not having to bug my daughter’s teachers or the tour guides with, “I need some coffee – when can I get some coffee?”)
• And then, of course, there’s my dear, sweet 1500+ Twitter friends!! Sweet Twitter friends – will you help me? Follow LisaMarieMary on Twitter and you can offer me support, too!

But What About The Depression?

The last few times that I’ve tried to quit you, I’ve gotten morbidly depressed. That is definitely one very scary part about all of this. I will just have to warn all of the family, so that they can, one, be warned of any depression grumpiness, and two, try to be supportive of me as I go through it.

I have a feeling that if I can get through the first week, it won’t be quite so bad after that. Or at least the first two weeks.

I actually have this vision of being more energetic, less tied to a coffee pot, and maybe getting off of this weight-loss plateau I’ve been on for a couple of months. I also have this vision of being an extremely more productive worker. I don’t know – that’s just my vision. I could be wrong. It could be way different.

It will definitely be nice, though, to be able to leave the house without the whole run-around of ….’Wait! Have I had enough coffee? Should I take one with me? Can we get one after we’ve been out for a while? Because you know I can’t go too long without one – you know I’ll get grumpy and get a massive headache!’

What a drag all of that is! And speaking of headaches, migraines in particular, I’ve been in the middle of a really BAD spell of them since December. Cannot seem to shake them. So this could be a real PLUS in the migraine department, as well!

Ok, Coffee – you’ve been ‘Dear John’d’ – now get the hell outta here!! *hands on hips*

Yes, quite literally, I have a pain in my neck! I woke up this morning and my neck was hurting. I have had this sore spot for a while now. Two spots, really – the glands on either side of my neck. I got sick last February – I had a sinus infection, along with a double ear infection. The doctor called in two prescriptions for me, one of which was oral and reasonably priced. The other, however, was eardrops and was so ridiculously high priced that we didn’t have the money for it. And I swear – for real – that the glands in my neck have hurt – off and on – since then! Some mornings I wake up and the one on the right side is really sore and I feel like I’m getting one of my vicious migraines, so I put ActivOn on it. You know, the arthritis cream! Ha!

Sometimes when I wake up and my neck and shoulders are sore and the migraine is trying to sneak in, I put Freeze It on my shoulders and just itsy-bitsy part way up my neck and that helps a lot. But I can’t really get Freeze It too high up on my neck or it burns. It’s really weird – I love that stuff, it’s totally awesome, but, I have to be careful when using it on my neck.

I just accidentally discovered that ActivOn would work for this purpose. I think you could call it a double accident!

Accident One: Mark’s mom had given it to him for some pain he was having, so it wasn’t even mine.

Accident Two: The fact that I discovered it would help on the front (practically) of my freaking neck! Well, heck fire – I don’t know how I stumbled onto that revelation. I am sure glad I did, though!

I made a quick video to show you where I’m talking about, because, when I was telling my brother where it was hurting, I think I totally confused him with my nonsense. (What makes me think a video is going to make sense of my nonsense, I don’t know!) I had just gotten out of the shower and thrown my hair up in a clip – so it’s a mess. But ya’ll don’t mind that now, do ya?

I know I must be completely psychotic for thinking an illness in February has left my glands affected this long, but, I’ve been called worse. And I’ve been called crazy a lot! So it’s okay, I can hang.

But I got up this morning and it was hurting worse than usual – bummer. And then I realized that I have a sore in my mouth. See, here’s another totally goofy thing about me – my sore throats almost always start with a sore in my mouth. Told ya I was strange. And my right ear has had a couple pangs of sharp pain. Cruddy puddy if I’m not getting sick again! I hope not, but, even if I am, it’s been a loooooong time. So that is pretty cool! I usually get sick once or twice, at least, in the summer. I don’t think I’ve been sick since last spring, though.