Occasionally I have a moment when I realize how far I have gone down the slippery slope of old age to the valley of pathetic. When I put on the next size smaller of jeans the other day, for example, it was a bittersweet moment. Right now I am SQUEEZING into what I consider to be my ’skinny jeans,’ sure, but just two years ago those very jeans were my ‘fat jeans.’ That epiphany hit me in one of those ‘Wow, I really have become quite sad’ moments.

Another one of those moments came tonight. I have been wanting to join a gym and start working out for an hour a day. Since I have yet to actually get around to obtaining that membership, I decided today to make use of the elliptical machine that we actually own. It isn’t the best, but it’s fully functional. I set a goal of 15 minutes. After all, I haven’t really worked out in a long time (unless you count the little walks on my lunch breaks). I turned on the TV, got on, and off I went. It got hard, and I slowed down a little. It got really hard, and I slowed down some more. Finally, I thought I might actually go into cardiac arrest. So I stopped. I looked at the clock. SIX MINUTES???!!!!

So Saturday, after spending most of the day studying, Bucket and I decided to take a nap. This is a luxury we do not get when the kids are home, and I LOVE naps. So around 4:30, we lay down and I went right to sleep. At 9:00, Bucket woke me up to make sure I was okay. At midnight, he woke me up to kiss me goodnight. At 7:30 this morning, I finally rolled out of bed. Wow. I have to be honest with  you, it felt SO good!!

For those of you that don’t know, Bucket and I have been on Weight Watchers for the past month. So far, he has lost 9 pounds and I have lost 8.5 (and yes, I will be taking the .5, thank you very much). It’s good, but it’s not quite 10. I would be so much happier if I could just get to 10! Today, I started trying to squeeze a little exercise into my day by using half of my lunch hour to walk laps. It was easy today because we have a casual Friday policy so I was wearing tennis shoes. It’s going to be a little harder in heels.

For my new job, I have to take classes. Classes about insurance. Yeah, it’s as riveting as it sounds. But I’m a good sport, and usually a team player. So over the next 2.5 years I will be taking classes trying to achieve an FLMI certification.

Unfortunately, it did not occur to me that this was going to be so much harder than it was when I was in college. It really is tough to teach an old lady new tricks. Not to mention, I now have four children that I am singularly responsible for five nights a week and a husband I like to pay at least a little attention to on the weekend. I never realized how easy this was for me before, because it felt hard then.

These days, when I’m reading about, say, life insurance, I find my mind drifting to laundry, baseball practice (Pitcher’s team has already started practicing for the spring, but that’s a rant for another day.), Princess’s latest boy gossip, or even the dogs (I think one of them has an infection in her eye). I find myself listening to the kids argue or play (more often the former than the latter unfortunately) instead of being completely engrossed in the difference between term life insurance and variable life insurance.

This all has me greatly stressed because my test is a week from today. And I just DO NOT fail tests. I just don’t do it. So this has led me to study well into the night. Bucket comes home, takes the books off the bed, throws some covers over me (because I am far too old to pull an all-nighter these days, but I’m in denial so I fall asleep with pen-in-hand) and kisses me on the head.

I was really good at this kind of thing, and now I’m pathetic. Sigh. Well, can’t talk, have to go study…

Tonight I exercised one of the perks of my job and took Pitcher, Prankster and a friend of Prankster (we’ll call him FOP) to an Indiana Fever game. I’ll admit that for all my support of Girl Power this is the first WNBA game I have ever attended. Okay, it’s the first one I’ve ever even watched.

Pitcher and I sat and watched the game, and it was good. Our story is not entertaining. We were sitting behind the goal and at the beginning of the game, a lady came around with a trash bag full of those long, skinny balloons and told Prankster, FOP and Pitcher they could take as many of them as they wanted. These are meant to be waved when the other team is shooting in an effort to distract them. Telling my kids that they can have as many as they want of anything other than vegetables is a mistake, as demonstrated when Prankster and FOP ended up with about 15 balloons.

Throughout the rest of the night they tied those balloons into flowers, hats, and a long rope. The value of the tickets was $14 each. The value of the balloons: I’d guess 99 cents. Those boys didn’t even realize the game was over at the end. Remember when it took so little to amuse you? (These days, it only takes my sister-in-law some scarves and headbands, but that’s a story for another day…)

Last night I took my mom, Prankster and Monkeyboy to the circus. I have some great memories of the circus as a child, and even as a teenager I used to go every year with my friends. Last night was Monkeyboy’s first trip to the circus, and Prankster was so young the last time he went that he has no memory of it.

My mom, because she spoils kids, animals, and my brother (who is a mix of both), paid extra to get us tickets in the second row. This was pretty cool, if I do say so myself. However, the circus itself I found disappointing. I don’t know if my memory has glorified the event or if it really has gotten to be a lower-budget (but still high-priced) affair. What really depressed me was that there doesn’t seem to be any such thing as a professional clown anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t even like clowns that much, but here’s the way it seemed to be set up: There was a cast of about 30 people that all served as clowns, dancers, and acrobats. Some of them also did special stuff, like tiger tamer, but they really all overlapped. This just isn’t my vision of the circus.

Anyway, all was well as Monkeyboy and Prankster had a great time, and we left with over-priced souvenirs, over-priced photos and under-priced memories.

Every day after work I drive downtown and pick my mom up from work and Monkeyboy up from day care. Then I take mom home and Monkeyboy and I head home. Occasionally, Monkeyboy asks to stay at mom’s house. And more often than not, I say no. But about twice a month I say yes. Tonight was going to be a “no.” But before I could answer him he looked at me with those big blue eyes and said, “Mommy, I’ll be a very good boy.” How am I supposed to say no to that?

First, let me say thank you to everyone that came to my birthday party. I had a great time and I hope you did too.

Now…the story for today: All of our children were away last night. Bucket and I watched a movie we had rented (Vantage Point) and then since my allergies have made it impossible to breathe through my nose for the previous twelve hours, retired early. The massive amounts of over-the-counter allergy meds I had taken (since our insurance refuses to cover my prescription, but that is a rant for another day) caused me to fall asleep quickly. At about 3:00 this morning I woke up to our dogs barking. Now, our dogs are both over ten years old and while they like to bark at passersby during the day, they truly value their sleep at night. Something was up.

Countrary to the roles we normally take in these situations, I smacked Bucket on the leg. He remained motionless. I waited a few beats, trying to decide if I should just get up (be assured that I am much more vigilant without the medication and when our children are home). Nope, decided to smack him again. This time he said, “What?” So I said, “The dogs are barking.” By the time I’d finished my sentence he had ascertained all on his own that something wasn’t right and was halfway out of bed.

Now, we have this situation at this point: my dogs are barking severely aggressive barks and intermittently growling, and my husband is downstairs with nothing but his half-asleep wits to guide and protect him. So I do what any loving wife would do. I move into the middle of the bed and go back to sleep. A few minutes later, I wake up enough to realize the dogs are now  in the backyard, still barking like they want to chew someone’s face off. “Wow, something must be in our backyard,” I think. “I hope it’s an animal and not a person yielding a machete.” Then I promptly go back to sleep. A few minutes later, the barking has stopped and Bucket is yelling for me. Of course, I ignore the first call because I want to make sure this is important. Finally, I drag myself downstairs. Bucket is standing at the back door. I scurry over and there, on the railing of our deck, is a decent-sized possum. Or opossum, whichever it is.  We had left the lids off our trash cans and we assume that’s what he was after.

Now, I have told you  how opposed I am to the hunting and killing. But I am not ashamed to tell you that my first reaction was that we need to find a way to kill the trash demon. I have a healthy fear of animals with claws, and I worry that this creature will hurt either my dogs or my kids. Especially since I am sure that if my dear, sweet Prankster or Pitcher came upon a sleeping possum in our shed, or under our deck during the day, their first thought would be, “Let’s see what happens if we poke it with a stick.”

But for last night, I decided just to go back to bed. So the trash demon lives another day.