So I have this problem. I don't know why I have it, but I do.

Many of my shirts have little holes right in the belly of them. This used to happen to my dorky sister when she was in band in high school...i believe it was the cymbals, and I believe she'd catch her shirt between them and bang holes in them. But I do not play the cymbals. And yet...I still have holes in my shirts.

Why do you think this is?

So I did my 30 day workout DVD again last night. I am on a roll! I hope I can keep it up. I have no problem making excuses for myself when it comes to diet and exercise. The GREAT NEWS about this is that I asked my boss about working part time, at least for a while, after the new year. If this happens, I will be able to go to the gym nearly every day. Let me tell you - you may never guess this, but I love love love going to the gym. But I am particular about it. If I am going to get dressed and drive to the gym, I don't want to do a 20 minute workout. No mammary!*

Actually, my getting dressed for the gym is a workout in and of itself. First, two pairs of spandex shorts are required. They cannot be too short (chub rub) and they cannot be too long (inferno!) but there must be two, one to wear and one to suck me in. It is WAY uncomfortable to jiggle when you jog or tackle the elliptical for an hour (and I am goo-oo-ood at the elliptical). Which brings me to my next point...my sports bra. This thing cost $9,000 and was worth every penny. The brand is Enell and I adore it. However, the stretching and pulling I have to do to get it on sometimes leaves me breathless and I am sure burns a few calories. Last, my shoes. Well not just the shoes but TYING the shoes. Again with the stretching and the breathing exercises necessary to get down there for the 10 seconds it takes to tie the bows. Before I even walk out the door I'm already sweating. Nice! For real though...I like to go to the gym...Elliptical for an hour, weights for a half hour, stretch and then sit in the sauna up to a half hour. If I can't get all these things in, I HATE to go. Now that I think about it, I'm that way about a lot of things. If I have to halfway do it, I just do not do it. Hmmmm, probably why my closet stays such a mess. If I cannot clean it out perfectly, I just can't do it.

Hi, I'm Shannon, and I ramble on and on and on about stuff nobody cares about. My point is...hopefully I can work part time and spend some good quality time at the gym without feeling HORRIBLE about leaving my son in the gym daycare for 2 hours...he hates it.

Okay. So. Since I am obviously the most boring person in the world, I'll try to entertain with some pictures. Me hopey you likey.

*See past posts if this doesn't make sense to you.

This is dedicated to the one I love...Jennifer.

Wow, I didn’t realize how much you all missed me and needed new entries in my blog to read! I can’t believe the sheer volume of emails I received wanting to know when I would be updating. I am humbled and feel thankful that I have so many followers.

What? Fine. Whatever – so it was only one little bitty person. And so what if “sheer volume” is equivalent to “one email?” So?? Do you want to know who that one person was? It was one of my BFFs, Jennifer! Yay Jennifer!

Who brings me to my first topic…Deltaberry Day! For those who do not know what DBDay is, it’s a tradition that started either nine or ten years ago (we never can remember) at No Frills Grill. Jennifer, Adrienne, Kristen and I make up the Deltaberries and we use the day to celebrate our nearly lifelong friendships. Adrienne was my first friend in this town, and we’ve been friends for what will be 20 years this coming summer. Wow! And I’ve known the other two almost that long.

You know, I could use this opportunity to write about my first meeting with my first friend. I can’t imagine that many people who read this don’t know it – but here goes. Picture this: Shannon at age 12, brand new to the tiny town. She doesn’t know anyone and it’s in the middle of summer. What’s a girl to do? Well, this particular girl decides to go for a walk and get to know her neighborhood streets.

As I walked along, I noticed a tree branch near the curb of one street. Not just any insignificant twig, but a real live branch, with twigs of its very own coming out of the ends. The best I can compare it to would be a set of antlers. Antlers? YEAH! ANTLERS! Now, before you judge my next move, I really want you to try to put yourself in the shoes of a lonely tween girl who has zero (ZERO!) friends.

I figured the only thing to do with the branch I’d just found was to stick it in my ponytail and pretend to be a deer. I walked a quarter to a half mile with my shiny new antlers, and thinking back, I can only imagine how my new neighbors must have reacted if they’d happened to looked out their windows at that moment.

Anyway, there I was, a-walkin’ along, when I looked up and saw a girl about my age, also solo. She looked at me. I looked at her. “What are you DOING?” she asked me. “Ummmm, pretending to be a reindeer,” I answered her, silently praying and hoping that she would think I was cool and quirky, instead of bizarre and odd. “Cool,” she said, “want to go to the playground?” HELL YEAH I DID!!

And the rest is history.

But back to Deltaberry Day. We always meet before Christmas (usually on the 22nd) to hang out, have snacks and exchange gifts. We once tried adding other girls in but it just did not work. There were too many. So we cut it back down to just the four of us. This year we met at Adrienne’s and ended up at No Frills (of course!) and we had a great time. I gave Deltaberry nightshirts and I received from Adrienne, Jennifer and Kristen, respectively: a runner’s fannypack with two water bottles, complete with a badass skull and crossbones appliqué; a fabulous black photo frame; and super cute knee high socks and some lip gloss. Magnificent!

So the Jenny Craig is going quite well. I’m down 14 now and Scott is down 13 (BOOYAH). Well, JC was going quite well. I didn’t mean “is” at all. This week was haaaaarrrrrrrrrd. I don’t know what the deal was, I guess a combination of it being Christmas and us having been on the program for a month now just really did it for me. I’m afraid I may gain this week. Oh well. As long as I have a net loss over the holidays, I figure I am coming ahead anyway. And, I am back on the wagon completely as of today. I also started my Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. This DVD is kicking. My. Ass. I love it! Although, I am not sure who I think I am…with these sore abs. Sore abs? LOL. Like I’m some hot workout girl. One day….

So, you know how I’ve been talking about how much my daughter is growing up and so on and so forth. Well, it’s true – but she still has a little bit of little girl left in her. James loves to have his face “painted” with my makeup. Whether it’s a doggy face, a kitty face, or an avatar arrow, he’s always asking me to do this for him. This past weekend he asked for a kitty face and as I was coloring in his tiny black nose and whiskers, Clara shyly asked if it would be okay for her to get a kitty face too. AWWWW! Of course, BellyButton. So I painted both kids up as kitties and we went outside and blew bubbles for an hour.

My son is as graceful and as humble as I am. I’ve been known to take a spill or two, go ass-over-teakettle my fair share of times, run into sharp (or dull) objects that appear out of NOWHERE, and find ways to blame it on other people or just simply environmental causes that are out of my control. Yesterday James ran full speed into a wall in our house while he was looking the other way. Without skipping half a beat, he whirled around and shouted at whoever was listening, “SEE!? *THAT* IS WHY YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE PUT A WALL THERE!”

Think of me until next time…

31

I just had to use my 10-key calculator to figure out my age.

1. I didn't know how old I am.
2. I can't (won't?) do simple math in my head.
3. Thank God I know the year I was born and the year it is now (I think).

Down I go!

Man, it is cold. I know, I know. It's winter. Winter's cold. That doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't knock me on my butt anyway.

Since we started Jenny Craig, I have been eating homemade soup like CRAZY. The batch I made last night had chicken broth, squash, zucchini, onions, okra, carrots, cabbage, green beans, celery, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper and green bell pepper. I think that's it. Anyway, all of those veggies are "free" so basically I can eat as much of them as I want. It's nice because I was shot all the way down to 1200 cals a day and I'd been used to around 95,000 cals a day. So this soup is a great filler. Well, I ate the last of my soup at lunch yesterday so James and I had to make a trip to the grocery store in this stupid cold weather. We stocked up on all the veggies, and of course some other things that the kids like to have. When we got home, Scott was already there! He'd stopped and gotten some firewood and had the fire going and he was outside messing with some Christmas decorations. I LOVE LOVE LOVE when Scott comes home early. It's just so rare for him to be there on a weekday evening - we never see each other all day, really, until about 9pm. It's kind of hard, so last night was a great surprise!

Speaking of Jenny Craig, tomorrow is our 3rd weigh in. So far, I'm down 11 and Scott is down 10. Wahoo!

Did I already tell you all of this stuff? It's hard to remember things when you're a frazzled old lady. Yes, I mean me.

INSANITY!

Every year, the bank in the building where I work has a Christmas party. They have great food and free drinks, but the best part is the Santa! I’ve been coming to this party since I was 12 to get my picture with Santa, and now my kids do it almost every year.

Last year, James’s picture was the hilarious kind, where the kid is petrified…in his picture, James is screaming and reaching for me – it cracks me up every time I look at it. This year I knew would be different. He’s more excited about Santa and totally into the idea. As we were getting ready for the party, I informed him that we should probably dress up for our Santa pictures. Well, no problem for James. He disappeared into his room for a few minutes and came out – head to toe Ninja Turtle! Complete with mask and shell. I convinced him to leave the mask because otherwise we couldn’t see his face in the photo, but he wore everything else in his picture. I love it!

Clara always gets her picture taken with Santa, and I guess the photographer thought she was older than eleven years, because when I told her Clara wanted to sit with Santa, the woman LAUGHED AT HER. Clara and I just stared at her…and I went up to her and said, “is there a problem with her taking a picture with Santa?” and she said “no, not at all, I just thought it was funny – I used to do that.”

Um, do WHAT? I don’t get it. Does she think my baby’s too old for that? Well guess what…now, so does Clara! She was totally going to take her picture with Santa but that, ahem, WITCH, convinced her that she is too old and embarrassed her. Thankfully, she agreed to get in a picture with James and Andrew – but man. Well, whatever.

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James has a very, very long list of what he wants to be when he grows up, and he is sure that he will be all of these things. This list includes, but is not limited to, the following: doctor, fireman, race car driver, pizza man, Sonic Drive-in cook, and so on and so forth. In the car this past weekend, he wanted to make it clear that he wanted to be a PEOPLE doctor, not an ANIMAL doctor. I asked him, “do you know what an animal doctor is called?” To my amusement, he said, “Yeah, sure! A vegetarian!”

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Last night I went to the hall bathroom to blow my nose. Surprise! No tissue in there. So I trekked to my bathroom and was stopped by my husband who was guarding the bathroom door with his life! “NO!” he shouted. “YOU CAN’T COME IN HERE! NOBODY CAN COME IN HERE!”

Ummmm okay. “Scott, I gotta blow my nose. There’s no tissue in the other bathroom. Can you at least hand me a roll of toilet paper?”

*catches TP Scott throws in my direction* “Thanks, weirdo. Have fun in the bathroom.” *shakes head*

About 10 minutes later I was in the living room, watching “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant” and eating my Jenny Craig cheesecake, when Scott came in, and took my plate and fork out of my hand. “What are you DOING? This is precious cheesecake! You can’t have it! This is MY cheesecake! Where is yours? Eat yours, eat yours!”

Scott just looked at me like I was three years old and he said, “I’m not going to eat y’damn cheesecake, I just want to carry it for you.”

Against my better judgment, I let go of my prized dessert and allowed him to hold it. He took my hand and led me all the way back to my bathroom, where he had run a bath (perfect temp, by the way), lit at LEAST 2 dozen candles all around the tub, and set up my little bathtub reading table with my book and a new reading light.

What? Why? I don’t….well…is it….I mean…what are you…how come…should I…why did you do this???

He explained he just wanted to be nice and reminded me of a list that my dad gave him when we first got engaged. It was a list of things that would make me happy. One of the things Dad put on the list was “make sure she gets some alone time.” And, that’s what he was doing.

Can you believe it? How can the person who drives me to the brink of insanity like nobody else…be the very same exact person who I love past the brink of insanity? Sigh.

What are "things that are precious, Alex??"

1. Snoozing until 11am on Sunday morning with my husband and son in the bed with me (the girl was at her dad’s this past weekend).

2. James’s first Christmas program at school. He was told to wear “Christmas clothing” which I took to mean something red/green or with jingle bells on it or what have you. Scott took it to mean nice dress up clothes. So last night I made James a t-shirt with a Christmas tree (an iron on printed from my computer) and he is wearing that over nice(ish) pants and a button down shirt. There. We are both covered! The program went off without a hitch, and believe it or not, although all the children were adorable, James was the best! And - half the kids were dressed nicely, and half had on Christmassy t-shirts.

3. The necklace my daughter gave me...every single moment that I have with Clara in which she makes the first move to show that she loves me, or at the very least, to show that she doesn’t think I am the most embarrassing, biggest idiot on the planet. We were cleaning out her room together and she found a couple of charms, you know the kind…one reads “I love” and the other reads “you” and when you put them together, they form a heart. Well, she had the charms but not the necklaces so she asked if we could go get some chains or something for them, so that she could keep one and she could give one to me. So…that’s what I have on today. My sparkly earrings, my work clothes, and my “you” necklace. So precious.

4. The tiny morsel of Canadian bacon that just fell out of my Jenny Craig breakfast and onto the floor. I can’t ever get it back.

Filet o'finger

Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving? Mine was AWESOME. I took Wednesday off, so I had five days in a row off of work! And Scott was off all those days, too. He was supposed to go hunting that weekend, but it didn’t work out and he stayed home. We had such a good weekend :) Each year, we start a change jar. This year our change jar was an old (big) vinegar jug. We filled it nearly to the top with change and dollar bills, and when we finally cashed it in, we had about $320.00! That is a good chunk to go toward Christmas gifts. That’s what we always use the money for. It really is a good feeling to know that we’re going to have a nice amount to spend for Christmas, and it might as well be free money. $99 of that amount was dollar bills, mostly ones that we threw in here and there, but there were a few fives and one twenty…but it is all money that we don’t even miss. Yay!

I can’t help it if I like things neater nowadays. When I met my husband, I was an utter pig. Dirty laundry in the living room, dishes in the sink for weeks, every inch of counter space in the bathroom taken over by makeup and q-tips and dirty washcloths. Now, I like it NEAT. That does not mean it always is, but I like it that way. Scott’s the reverse. When I met him, he was neat. He gave in to my slovenly ways and now I’m paying for it. I cut my finger pretty good (pretty bad?) this weekend while making soup, as in, I kind of filet (WHAT is the past tense of that word??? That’s what I need right here) the top of my left index finger, so that there was a flap of skin dingle-danglin’ off of it. And it hurt like a MUTHA. So I wrapped my finger in a towel and went to Scott, nearly in tears. I told him what happened and he asked if I thought I needed stitches. I told him I didn’t think I did, but that I hadn’t really looked at it really good, because it hurt too much. As I was trying to gain composure so I could look at the wound, I said to Scott in a raspy, strained voice, “did…you know….that you….didn’t…throw away your cheese wrapper? You…left it…on the counter.” Scott just burst out laughing, and I was all, “What??? You did!” And he pointed out the fact that we were trying to decide if I needed to go to the E.R. and I was STILL bitching about him not throwing away his trash.

Speaking of clean…it’s one of my two favorite days of the month! Cleaning Lady Day! Boo Bee Bee Bah Bo Bee Boo!!!!!! I can’t wait to go home and inhale the scent of fake pine and lemon!

Also, fine, okay, I’ll tell you. I am on day 4 of Jenny Craig. So far, so good. Thank GOD Scott is doing it with me. I’d probably have fallen apart by now if he wasn’t. Not that he doesn’t need to lose weight too…but guess what. I have 150% the weight to lose that he does. That’s right, folks, 150%! Oh well, you just watch out. You’ve all seen ME hot. Five years ago (grooooooaaaaaaaaan) I was a hot-hot-hottie. But you’ve not seen my husband and me hot TOGETHER. We are going to blow ya mind. I’m not sure if you’ll still be friends with us, that is how hot we are going to be. Just keep in mind…hot people need love too. Just ask my sister.