Tone it or Tan it

My goal this summer has been to tone all parts of my body if possible. If there are certain areas (my flabby tummy) that cannot be mastered, I will simply tan it until it looks slimmer. In order to make myself stick with the plan I bought a two piece bathing suit in Wal Mart. Who doesn’t buy bikinis where they buy their paper products and milk?

I am one of the palest people on the planet, or at least in south Arkansas. I am so pale I could sit in a high school cafeteria, hold out my hand, and move all the forks to my hand while plastering everyone with mashed potatoes. Okay maybe I am not as pale as the guy in the movie Powder, but I am close. Needless to say I have not spent much time in a tanning bed.

I decided to venture into the Skin Cancer To Go store down the street from my house. When I walked in the girl behind the counter was gnawing on a piece of gum so hard it made my jaw hurt. When I inquired if I could purchase a group of tanning visits she replied, “Uh huh”. I then asked if they had the stand up beds available. Her reply was of course, “Uh huh”. I first encountered this Rhodes Scholar when using this venue for my spray on tans. Anyone who has ever been in one of those spray on booths knows the awkwardness of standing there with a shower cap on and assuming the “crouching tiger” position while completely naked.

She tells me to go into booth three and she will turn the machine on for me. I get out of my clothes, tie up my hair, and put on those goggles which I am sure block out all of the harmful rays. As soon as I get in my little space capsule I realize I have to pee. I wonder if I have enough time to pee before it starts or if I can hold it for 6 minutes. I am so wrapped up in the thoughts about my impending UTI that I do not realize the machine never turned on. I open the door wearing nothing but a tiny towel and my thong and ask the girl if I went in the wrong booth.

“Uh Huh”

The other part of the plan is to tone my body. While in Wal Mart I see the Detox and Cleanse Plan by Jillian. Jillian seems to really help those people on the Biggest Loser, so surely she can help me. I will not elaborate on the two week process, but if I ever meet Jillian I’m gonna punch her in the gut.

I also purchased the P90X video which I have been doing for five weeks now. It is not easy making myself do this for an hour every night in my bedroom with the dirty laundry, three kids at my feet and a dog that wants to play with my hair when I am lying down. I can honestly say I have seen and felt a difference though. I have much more definition in my arms and stomach. I am like a 13 year old boy now because I stand in the mirror and look at my sexy arms. My husband caught me one day and asked when we were going to the gun show. He will also sit at the computer while I am sweating like a pig trying to follow along with the DVD and make remarks about where I need to put my legs or arms in order to look like the people on the DVD.

He can get in line behind Jillian.

Grapes of Wrath

My mother would eat grapes in the grocery store before she bought them. There, I said it. It is all out in the open – a family secret. Mother would have her Gucci purse in the front of the basket along with green stamps and any other cost saving idea she could use. Her excuse for the grapes was always, “I want to make sure they are good”. While that particular trait of hers would irk me to no end as a child, another trait would find its way into my own adult personality.

I am blunt. I wish I had the Irish ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a nice way that they actually look forward to the trip. I just tell them to go to hell. If I don’t like someone, I tell them. Life is too short to waste your time on trying to make mean people think you care for them when all they do is cause you pain. I come by that honestly.

I grew up in a small town in Mississippi where social time occurred at church or in the local Kroger. When I was about ten my mother and I were on our usual trip to the Kroger when we ran into someone she knew in the produce section. The biggest news in town that month was the fact that a couple of well off empty nesters had adopted two young sisters from Africa after their parents had died. The empty nesters had met the girls on a mission trip with the church, and were trying to get them acclimated to their new surroundings before they started school. The random woman in the produce section asked my mother if she had heard what was going on and made the comment that “We didn’t need any more of THOSE people in our community”. She was of course saying that we didn’t need anymore dark skinned people in our slightly affluent section of town. My mother, with a mouth full of grapes, replied, “We don’t need bigots either.”

Mother doesn’t take any shit. She takes even less as she had aged. I do not take any shit either. The issue occurs between us as we refuse to take each others shit.

An acquaintance approached me in the supercenter not to long ago and asked me why on earth we allowed people from the near by homeless shelter to volunteer in our museums occasionally. While he does not donate a dime to the museum, he felt we were crazy to allow such meager people to help us with certain tasks. I explained to him that the museum staff and I feel it is our Christian responsibility to help people back on their feet in their time of need. I also added that if he wanted to be a cold hearted bastard about it that was his problem.


I really do try to sprinkle the love of Jesus to those around me, but sometimes I get a little off track on my delivery.

I thought of my mother at that moment. One reason was because of what I had just said. Another was that I looked down and took a good hard look at my basket. It was full of Sam’s Choice items and coupons were spilling out of my Kate Spade purse.

I was not, however, eating my grapes.

The washer and dryer incident

I have actually had requests to tell this story in all its glory. I can honestly say this is one the worst moments in my accident prone life. Falling off a bed or dragging toilet paper on my shoe has nothing on this.

One day in late April both the washer and dryer die an untimely death. I had broken the Do Not Covet Thy Sister’s Front Loaders rule a couple of years earlier and had been begging for my own set ever since. Being the romantic devil that he is, my husband bought me a set for Mother’s Day.

He also just happens to be out of town when the purchases arrive. He swears up and down he paid for them to be installed, but they were just left in my laundry room when I got home from work. I have no idea how to install a washer and dryer. I am a Junior Leaguer. Mind you I have a mountain of dirty clothes waiting to be washed. Hubby is not due home for another three days, so I embark on the adventure myself.

At one point the kids asked, “Mommy, Why is there water all over the floor?” and “Why are you crying?” I had no idea how hard it would be to hook up water. I finally got a load washed at about 2:00 A.M. I thought the dryer would be simple. I was wrong.

I get the kids off to school early and make a trip out to a box store where I purchase some special thingy to make my 1930’s home and the new dryer friends. I run home because I have to get to work and decide the dryer can wait until I finish working. I of course make a small attempt to unscrew the plate on the bottom of the backside of the dryer, but those things were heavy! I was tired and worn out from wrestling the washer all night, and needed a shower.

I get partially undressed when I say enough is enough. I will not let this washer and dryer get the best of me. I have a college education. I can do this!

Bullshit.

I had one leg in between the washer and dryer while the other leg was on top of the dryer. I had to leverage myself so I could drape the top half of my body behind the dryer in order to unscrew the back plate. All was good until my foot that was in between the two appliances slipped on the tile floor still wet from last nights washing machine fiascos. My body landed in the exceptionally small space in between the washer and dryer with my left hip on the floor, my arms up in an awkward position, and my back twisted. I cannot move. I cannot even lift myself up because I have no leverage. I am stuck.

Let me just set the scene for you. There is a hideously embarrassing amount of dirty laundry everywhere. Any woman would be humiliated if someone saw it. I am wearing a thin white t-shirt with no bra and my favorite panties. They have large red and white horizontal stripes and are so old they are actually paid for. Neighbors behind us are out of town as well as the husband. Kids are at school and since it is not payday, my office staff has no reason to look for me.

We had new neighbors move into the house next to us a couple of weeks earlier and I knew they were home, but I had only met them once. “I have been meaning to bring over a casserole but could you help pry me out of here while politely ignoring my Cat in the Hat panties?” I think I will just rot here thank you very much.

After two hours of intermittently rocking my body back and forth in order to slowly move the heavy appliances, I was free. I told my best friend about it later in the afternoon. She tried to get out the words “I’m sorry” while she was laughing but never quite finished the phrase.

Thank you for reading my post and I hope you feel better about yourself.

A Baby

“And then, Melanie s*#t all over herself”. This is what my lovely husband told a group of childless people at DINNER shortly after the birth of our first child. He was of course giving a blow by blow description of the childbirth marathon I had endured to bring our beautiful daughter into the world. He tends to exaggerate, as I do not remember it being quite like that. He also swears up and down that I told his mother to, “shut the fiddlesticks up” during the birth of our second child, but I disagree.

There are many wonderful things about having a baby. There are also many not so wonderful things about having a baby. A baby brings you and your spouse together. A baby also makes you want to choke your spouse in the middle of the night. My favorite part of having a baby is when my husband brings me our baby to hold for the first time and gives me a kiss on the forehead. The worst part? I hate to admit that I have had the fleeting thought that if I wasn’t breastfeeding, 40 pounds overweight, broke, and exhausted I’d leave his non-baby feeding ass. Please tell me I am not alone in having that thought for a split second.

Those thoughts come from lack of sleep. There is a reason zombies are mean. They are very, very tired. What can make matters worse is if you are exhausted while still pregnant. A friend once said, “Living with a pregnant woman is like living with a Rottweiler. You never know when she’s gonna turn.” It does not help when the sales lady at the store tells you they don’t carry that size bra and you need to order one from Sears. Since nothing fits and you want to incinerate your maternity clothes, you end up walking around the house looking like you belong in a National Geographic magazine. I have stood in my birthday suit in front of an open freezer complaining it is hot…in December.

You see both of my daughters were born in December. People ask me how I had two children with the same due date of December 19th. My husband is a CPA. The deadline for corporate tax returns is March 15th. You do the math.

About four weeks into our first child’s life, we realized she would sleep if she were gently rocked…nonstop. We discovered this after holding her, putting her in the bouncy seat, putting her in the seat that vibrated, and putting her in every other present we received at our baby shower. We would have put her in a carnival ride if it put her to sleep. At first we laid her in the cradle at the foot of our bed. My husband tied a rope to his big toe so he could rock her and lay down at the same time. We received a baby swing as a present so we cranked it up and watched her fall instantly asleep. The problem was when we tried to get her out or crank the swing again. We would bump her head or wake her up from the noise and she would start screaming again.

We were so broke. We were “coast the last half mile to work to save gas” broke. I have never loved my husband more than when he wrote a hot assed check to Wal Mart at two in the morning for an open top battery operated baby swing. I rocked and fed her for an hour while he put it together. It was the best five hours sleep of our lives.

As always, thank you for reading my post, and I hope you feel a little better about yourself.

What I have learned as an adult

This one has taken me awhile – I cannot control the weather. I struggle to even write down that truth. I am a fundraiser by trade as I must raise money to keep the lights on at the museums. We have two outdoor events every year and the weather has historically been perfect almost every time. Is it wonderful once I take over the events? NOOOOOO. Our fall festival this year came complete with drizzling rain and cold temperatures. I like to plan for the worst so I purchase rain insurance. Rain insurance helps you recoup the money lost in case of bad weather, but it must rain 1/4 of an inch during the stated times. A drizzle does not make ¼ inch of rain but it does drive people away from your event.

In the spring we have a wine tasting at our historic home. We decorate the lawn with flowers and tents galore. What happened my first year as Director? The Finger of God. That’s right. A Tornado. The next year I purchase rain insurance for the event with the knowledge that it has not rained two years in a row on this particular weekend for the last sixteen years. It must rain ¼ of an inch between 5 and 7 pm for the insurance to pay. The clouds opened up at 7:05. Seven o’ freaking five.

Let’s go back to my childhood. I spent many nights as a young girl sitting in the garage with my father listening to country music. My father would repair items while I sat on the riding lawnmower and watched. Actually my Dad would drink Jack Daniels and use nothing but glue and screws to further destroy everything from toasters to trailers.

We listened to all country music from Charley Pride to Waylon Jennings, but my favorite was Conway Twitty. I knew every word to “Tight Fittin’ Jeans”. Still do. One night I asked my father, “If her jeans are so tight, how did she fit a tiger in there?” I had some clothes that fit a little snug, and I couldn’t imagine stuffing an animal in them. My father just laughed, but never answered. I was in college before I figured that one out.

When my father would drop something or pinch his finger he would say, “ah f…………..fiddlesticks.” I didn’t know what fiddlesticks were, but I knew never to repeat the word. As adult I acquired an affinity for the real fiddlesticks. My mother noticed this while overhearing a comment I made while at my sister’s wedding. She rolled her eyes and sighed while telling me that was my father’s favorite word. I replied by telling her they had four children, it must have been his favorite thing to do too. Nana didn’t think that was so funny.

I am now of course married to a man named Chad, but my first kiss was from a boy also named Chad in the sixth grade. We were watching the movie “Some Kind of Wonderful”. I knew it was coming. I brushed my teeth about 16, 874 times before my mom dropped me off at the movies. We had been holding hands for quite a while, but that just didn’t cut it anymore. That and the fact that I have very sweaty palms. He leaned in and for a brief moment I saw fireworks. That was until terror shot through my body. What in the Hell was he doing with his tongue? No one told me anything about tongue! I went home thinking that other girls were crazy. There was no way I was going to do that with a boy for the rest of my life. No Sir!
Thank you for reading my post, and I hope you feel a little bit better about yourself.

The Cat

When my oldest daughter was in first grade she was begging for a cat. I sympathized with her because I like cats and I realized she had seen quite a few changes in her life lately. She had changed schools, had a little brother and sister in the past two years, and moved into a new house. Why not get the kid a cat?

My husband hates cats and told me there was no way we were going to get a cat. His exact words were, “Do not bring a cat in this house”. I pulled our daughter out of school to get the cat from the vet’s office. She named it Star and fell in love with it instantly. My son thought it was very cute and cuddly, and my youngest daughter thought it was something to squeeze. My youngest, who we will refer to as “The Blonde”, tried to call Star the Kitty. Star was a hard name for her to pronounce with her toddler abilities. Kitty must have been somewhat of a struggle since she called it Shitty.

After about two hours I realized this was going to be another job for me. The kids were constantly messing with that damn cat. Allow me to give you a rundown of the phrases I repeated to the kids about 6,000 times a day:

Don’t squeeze the cat.
The cat does not like being dressed up.
Let the cat sleep.
Don’t eat the cat’s food.
Who put the tutu on the cat?
Do not throw the cat.
The cat’s bottom is no place for your finger.
Don’t lick the cat.
Who put the cat in the ice maker?!?!?!?!

The Blonde was the one who put the cat in the ice maker. We have a stand alone ice maker in the kitchen, which has never worked since this incident. That is why I was not surprised when The Blonde came into my bedroom crying and screaming one day that the shitty bit her. That was when my mothering instinct kicked in and I told her, “If I were the shitty I’d bite you too!”

About six months later we left for our anniversary trip. The kids stayed with my mother-in-law and someone else was supposed to watch the cat. Star was meant to be let out once a day and have his water and food refreshed. When we returned we learned that Star had been missing since day two.

Shitty got his shit and left.

This is not the end of the story, but this particular outcome was probably best for all involved. I have my suspicions that Star lives in a house in our neighborhood with a very nice elderly woman. He is now a fat house cat. I hope he is fat because he gets plenty of food and love, and not because he has to be on Zoloft.

Thank you for reading my post and I hope you feel better about yourself.