I've come to a conclusion.  The best age for children is 0-4 months.  They don't talk.  They don't move.  They don't do anything but eat and sleep.  That shit…..that shit is glorious.

Brandon turns eight this week.  Codi is five and a half. Some good things have come with their age.  They can buckle themselves into the car, they can unbuckle, they can wipe their own ass and they can go in the kitchen, open the refrigerator and get their own string cheese, and most of the time even open the string cheese.

But man, with age comes brains, and defiance.  There is no shortage of defiance in my house.  I can no longer spell things to my husband because Brandon can spell.  I can't lay next to him and read a 50 Shades style book, because he can read the words on the page now and ask questions.  They have learned to bargain.  This drives me insane.  No we are not making a deal, there is no trade for eating your vegetables, just eat them.

They also fight.  A lot.  I am an only child.  I don't understand fighting with siblings.  I always assumed if I had a sibling I would love them always and we would be bestest friends.  But these two…nope.  The little one doesn't get his way and he punches his brother in the balls.  The big one wants something the little on has, he just strong arms him, takes it and runs away.  The little one doesn't get his way so he just instantly turns on the tears and says the big one hurt him.  They kick each other at least 79 times a day.  

Two weeks ago Brandon had his little brother in a head lock and was covering his mouth with his hand so that little brother couldn't tattle to me.  I lost my shit.  This isn't how brothers behave.  However, everyone with siblings just laughs and says it's normal.

Brandon has a video game he hasn't played in over a month.  Codi asked to borrow it and Brandon said no. When I asked why he said, "well because maybe I will want to play it now, so just in case I should keep it."  This always happens.  Something is banished to the pile of unwanted toys until the other one touches it.  Suddenly that toy is the most sought after toy ever.  I swear, if I gave Codi a Barbie doll Brandon would want to play Barbies just because his brother was touching one.

Then there is the emotion.  Brandon lays it on thick.  He and Codi will be fighting and sometimes I just look at them and say, "I don't care who did what, I don't want to hear it, figure it out you two."  That is when Brandon really let's me have it' "you never want to hear what I have to say, you never listen to me, you always believe Codi."  This shit drives me crazy.  Brandon can tell me seven times his version of the story and on the 8th time when I say I don't want to hear it anymore I just want them to figure it out, he will start crying and say I never listen to him.  Dude…I listened the first seven times.  Doesn't change my mind I still want you two to work it out. 

They never listen either.  They have learned that if I tell one of them not to do something, that in their minds it means they should just both do it.  Yesterday I told them to stop rolling in the grass out front of the pool because their is always dog poop on that lawn. Their solution was to just push each other off a wall onto the lawn, then when I said something about it they replied, "I wasn't rolling on the lawn, he pushed me there." Like that was totally fucking logical or something.

You guys.  These two boys…they are going to put me in an asylum. 

12.  The number of years I have been with my husband. I met him when I was only 19 years old.  Looking back on it, that seems so young.  It also doesn't feel like I've spent twelve years of my life with one person.  I always ran after a few months.

13. The number of years my grandma has been gone.  A person would think after thirteen years the loss would get easier.  It does not.  I loved that woman so fiercely. So many of my lifes memories are with her.  The sound of her voice, the smell of her cigarettes, the way she tapped her foot when she sat, the lipstick she wore.  It still rips me apart inside knowing she is gone, she never met my husband and she never saw my children. 

19.  The number of years since my biological father died.  He has been dead more years then I even knew him.  I only knew him for twelve years.  I still go through ups and downs with that.  I still go back and forth between, "I don't need him, he left me," and, "Why was I not enough for him to stay around?"

21.  The number of years I've been best friends with Ginger.  I've known her longer but we didn't become best friends until Mr. Mclains fifth grade class.  Twenty one years I've had the same best friend.  She knows every single one of my secrets.  EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.  That is over half of my life that one person has been a part of.

The numbers in my life amaze me.  The age of my children, it feels like they were only  babies yesterday and in about two weeks my oldest son will turn eight.  It doesn't even feel as though I've had him eight years.  The number of friends who have come and gone.  The number of men I slept with.  The number of medications I've tried to straighten my mind.   My weight.  It's all a numbers game.  I'm going through one of those times, the times when everything is black, when I miss the things I've lost.  When I can't find it in myself to love myself.  When I can't stop eating and the numbers become about the number of cookies I've eaten vs. the number of carrot sticks.  The time when I feel like pulling my hair and screaming while simultaneously feeling like crawling in a hole and crying in the dark.  

I talked to my husband about some of it. About my fears.  My fears about how many more numbers I will see.  How many more years will I have with him before I go crazy and lose him.  How many more mistakes will I make.  How many more pounds will I gain.  

The numbers.  

They float around and around and around in my head.

I received my ipsy bag today.  I'm not impressed.  Okay that's not accurate…I got some pretty good stuff, in good size samples but they did an awful job color matching me this month.  Let's look.

Let's open the bag. 

Let's look inside

Healthy Sexy Hair Soy renewal beach spray.  I wanted to use this right away but apparently I have to apply it to damp hair.  And then what?  I have stick straight hair.  No amount of spray is going to give me that sexy little wave so I'm not sure what to do with this besides make my hair smell pretty.

Da Fuq? Pop Pouty Crayon in Fuchsia Flirt.  Exactly what part of my preferences made it seem like I would wear this.  Let's try it on shall we?

Oh sweet baby Jesus I look like a clown.

Maybe another angle?

Good god.  That shit is bad.  Why ipsy? Why would you send me hot pink lipstick?  No no no bad!

Then I got this Nailtini nail polish in Mai Tai.  It's a redder version of Giant's orange.  I don't hate it.  Shit. I'm supposed to swatch this stuff aren't I?  Hang on be right back. 

No, wait.  That's not a good representation, let me try again. 

I don't hate it.  It's sort of SF Giants colored.  It goes on pretty smooth.  This is only one layer of the polish so it coats well.  It also dried super duper fast.  Not to mention it's smooth as shit.  Seriously I've never felt such a silky smooth polish before.  

Okay next up.

BH Cosmetics California collection.  I don't even know what to do with this.  Reason one…look at these colors.

First of all I don't know how to apply eye shadow to save my life.  Even if I did I would have no idea what to do with these colors.  I don't even want to attempt to swatch this because I would look like a clown.  A really bruised clown.  

Updated*

Someone told me to just try brushing the eye shadow on with my fingers.  As you can see this worked great….yeah, no i failed and as predicted I looked bruised.  

Can you see it?

I only did one eye. My lord I'm bad at this.

Finally I got some Coola tinted moisturizer stuff.  I don't moisturize.  I don't tint either.  This will be passed off to a friend.

Although looking at these pics maybe I should use some moisturizer.  And possibly some wrinkle cream.  Does ipsy send Botox because wow, my forehead.  Ouch!

The bag is mega cute though. I can't wait to cram something in it and put it in my purse. I really love getting the cute little bags every month.  I adore cramming stuff in small bags just to put them in bigger bags.

I have mixed feelings about this month.  I got some rad stuff, in good sizes but color wise..I'm afraid.  I hope ipsy does better next month.

Friday when I got off work I was tired.  My husband has been working so hard, and taking on so much more responsibility so that I can have time to go to the gym so when I got home I decided before I sat down and started reading I would put away the dishes and load the dish washer.  Then I remembered him telling me he wished the cup cabinet was organized because for about five years we have just been cramming all sorts of cups and shit in one cabinet and it would barely shut anymore. So I cleaned out the whole cabinet and organized it.  Then I cleaned out the kids lunch / Tupperware drawers.  But then I looked at the play room downstairs. It was a mess.  Not a noticeable mess.  The floors were picked up, the table cleaned, the couch wasn't messy, but on closer inspection the shelves were a fucking disaster and the toy box was over flowing.  See:

I knew that bothered my husband too.  The room started as his man cave and then slowly became a play room.  It's never stayed clean and it drives him crazy.  I've been promising to organize it but between the gym and relaxing it never happens.  Friday night I had enough.  I decided it was time.  I packed up all of my old shot glasses and personal shit, I ripped every single thing off the shelves and I drove to Walmart.  I bought some bins and set to work.

The beginning and the middle.

Almost done (my stool and cleaning supplied were still there.)

The finished product.  I emptied the toy box, and it's actually going to move out of the room next weekend when I clean the shed out.  The shelves are spotless and once I make labels with pictures the kids can never tell me again they don't know where stuff goes.  Aside from Codi cuddled on a blanket in the corner on top of the giant bean bag, that is the cleanest the room has ever been.  The boys have strict rules now that they may play with one box at a time, and not touch another box until the last one has been cleaned up and put away.

After that I remembered how much my husband hates looking at my side of the bedroom. My husband does laundry.  I help fold and he puts away.  Everyones laundry gets folded and put away but mine.  I have a shitty set up.  My dresser is crammed in my closet and I don't have near enough drawers for everything.  When I met my husband I had two dressers and a very large closet.  Now, he has one of my dressers and I'm supposed to cram all of my stuff into five drawers.  It doesn't work.  I end up so mad I just refuse to even fold laundry.  I live out of laundry baskets.  Saturday after we worked out, got the kids hair cuts and went to the gym I decided to just get it out of the way.  

This was my side of the bedroom.

That is all of my laundry.  His side of the room is immaculate.

This is how it looks now.

My husband was thrilled.  Then I looked in my closet. 

Dear God.  I pulled out all of my shoes…see

Then I set to work vacuuming and mopping the floor in my closet.  I bought a shoe organizer at Walmart for $18.00 and a three drawer plastic bin and set about folding and hanging, and cleaning, and hanging, and folding, and more folding.  I had my husband put some nails in the wall so I could hang my bras up instead of mashing them into a drawer.  They are now hanging in the closet behind some shirts so no one sees my bras when they walk into the room. Last week I had cleaned out my night stand which is a huge deal since two weeks ago the drawers wouldn't even shut.  

Look how pretty it is now.

I dusted the rest of the room, cleaned up any other random shit and then my husband changed the sheets and we were able to relax.  

I hate my summer bedding, it's boring.

The only thing left in our room was some picture frames I wanted hung.  They were cluttering my husbands side of the room so I went ahead and push pinned them into the wall so he could rehang them correctly and now we have officially started our picture wall in the staircase. 

It's blurry because I was shaky after the gym.

I still have a shit ton of projects.  I need to organize the front hall closet.  I need to take all the clothes off the top of Brandon's closet and sort them into bins by sizes so I can hand them down to Codi.  I need to do the same in Codi's room so I can donate stuff.  I need to mop the whole house, and clean all three bathrooms, and I still need to take everything off the kitchen counters and wash the counters and all the shit on them.  I need to clean the stove top.  I need to do  a lot.  But doing these few things, really, really really made me relax some.  I am thrilled with the look of the play room.  I was so happy getting into bed last night in a clean and organized bedroom.  I love when I get into these little moods and want to clean all of the stuff.  It doesn't happen often but I'm glad when it happened this time I picked big projects and actually finished them all!

If you are tired of hearing about my weight and exercise, I'm sorry…find another blog to read.  This is important to me so I'm going to talk about it here.

This morning I posted this picture of myself:

Someone replied shortly after , "Oh you look tiny in that picture".  The first response that came to mind was, "oh it's a good angle."  In fact that has been my go to response for a while now.  I know all about angles.  My second response was wanting to point out that if they looked close enough they would see my arm fat and buddah belly. I stopped myself and instead replied, "And you are officially the best part of my day."  I allowed her comment to add some swagger to my step for the day and I chose to just believe it. 

Of course I right away took a different picture to get a better angle and hopefully appear less fat. 

I've been working out a lot.  In fact if you follow me on any sort of social media you will often see photos like this:

Sticking with the gym this time has not been hard.  I'm enjoying the gym.  I'm enjoying getting stronger and having better endurance.  I still need to get my eating under control and if I could do that maybe I would see better results in the weight loss department.  As it stands I'm down 2% body fat.  When I heard that I was mad.  I've been working out since March 24th and in that amount of time I wanted bigger results.  But…the number didn't go up and that is all I should care about.  My husband has to keep reminding me to stop calling myself fat.  I usually say it in a joking matter but he's had enough.  I keep telling him that technically according to the BMI and my body fat percentage that I am in fact FAT.

If you see my photos lately you will notice there is always an angle involved.

I took this photo recently.  I made sure to angle the camera from the top. I only shot myself from the side and I made the photo concentrate on my cleavage in hopes that it would distract from any fat.

In this photo even though the dress is cute as shit and I looked good for the photo I bent over, again made my boobs the star, and posed both arms to avoid any fat or jiggly parts. 

My husband and I are avid Chivers and he's been trying to get me on their website for a while now.  I've never felt pretty enough, no one else on that website has three chins like me, or cellulite on their legs, or five asses.  But he keeps telling me I'm worthy.  So I started submitting my own photos.  I submitted the one below when my new Chive panties arrived in the mail.

Look closely, they are both cropped on the sides so you can't see the part where the underwear kinda pushes into my skin, and you can't see how wide my hips and waist really are.  

I also submitted this photo. My husband loves this photo.

There are so many angles and camera tricks here.  Unfortunately I don't know how to Photoshop so my stretch marks are still visible.  I'm learning to take those as pregnancy battle scars instead of ugliness.  I haven't made it onto the website yet and I've convinced myself it's because I'm not like the other size 2 tiny girls with implants.  Of course a girl with a real body and real boobs wouldn't make it…no one wants to see muffin tops on their morning Chive viewing. 

Finally I decided that I wanted to wear a bathing suit that wasn't a tankini or a one piece.  I got brave and I bought this.

The bathing suit is cute, but obviously I cropped the photo above my ass, and my legs, and I turned to the side so you couldn't see my stomach fat from the front.  My arms are lifted so they don't appear fatter when they press into my body.

After that a friend posted this on Facebook:

It kind of struck a cord with me.  I have been wanting to wear a bikini forever just so I could have a full body tan.  I was tired of spending my summers with tan arms and legs and a pasty white stomach.  So….this weekend I did it.  I went into public in a bikini. 

Obviously I worked with the angle a lot on this.  And if you look hard enough behind my tattoo you can see my back fat.

The only picture of myself I have taken lately that I can't immediately complain about is this picture.

Although upon further inspection I see arm fat near my tattoo causing some kind of fat crease. 

The point of all this is that I wish that for one day I could see myself how others see me. Everyone around me keeps telling me I look good.  There are fleeting moments where I see it, but for the most part I really don't see it.  I haven't lost enough weight to justify their comments in my head. 

I've been trying to follow this:

But I will be honest.  I fail daily.  I fail 100 times a day at not comparing myself to others. The girl in my office has nicer legs then me.  My best friend who does weigh more then me wore a bathing suit to the pool this weekend and all I could think was, "she has no cellulite on her legs, they are so smooth, and her stomach isn't all full of stretch marks.  At the beach women who seemed bigger then me that were wearing bikinis I looked at and though, "okay well if she can wear a bikini I can wear a bikini."  But then I thought, oh my God, maybe she isn't bigger then me. If she is wearing a bikini there must be a reason, so obviously I'm bigger then I thought in my own head.  

It wasn't until maybe this last weekend that I realized, that those women were in fact bigger then me, they probably just hated themselves far less then me.

When I go to the gym, instead of being proud of my work I'm constantly looking at the smaller girls wearing tiny clothes and getting mad.  I get mad that I'm not as small as them, and I get madder that they go to the gym in such tiny clothes.  I understand they are small and skinny and fit, but did it ever occur to them that they are discouraging people like me. I look at them and know, most of them had the genetics to start out small, and since they do a lot of prancing around and flirting at the gym they obviously aren't working out as hard as me, yet they are so much smaller then me.  I hate it, girls like that aren't an inspiration.  They do nothing but make me shame myself and be mad that God created some people with good metabolism and fantastic genetics and I got stuck in the short, fat, slow metabolism gene pool.  For a long time I hid out in the girls weight room just so I didn't have to see those skinny girls, and I didn't have to feel like the sexy fit guys were laughing at the fat chick struggling to lift weights.  Thankfully I've gained enough muscle to feel confident in my lifting abilities now.  I know people aren't laughing at the chick who can't even lift the bar, but I do know they are all laughing at the size of my thighs in their head.

Loving myself is a huge battle.  My husband hugged me yesterday and told me I felt smaller.  I didn't reply. The reply on my tongue was, "I've gained three pounds, I can't feel smaller."  Instead I just shut up and said nothing.  People comment left and right on my social media photos telling me I look good.  Instead of replying I think, "it's because of the angles, if they saw me straight on they wouldn't think that. 

In fact I posted this progress shot on Instagram the other day.  It's me about a month after I started working out, and me this weekend at the spa.

After posting it I thought, "this is it, everyone has seen my legs from the front now.  Everyone knows how fat I really am." I wanted so badly to crop that photo above the thighs but I couldn't or no one would have been able to see the progress I've made.

I was so confused when people commented that I looked good and was making progress.  Didn't they see the fat?  Didn't they see the cellulite?  Didn't they see the cottage cheese hiding under the skin of my thighs, and the fat pack surrounding my belly button?

Or…is it possible I'm the only one who sees this? Am I really so filled with self hatred that I can't take the compliments I'm given?  I used to love my eyes and my smile.  Now when I take a face photo, I notice my eyebrows are bushy and ugly, my nose looks large on my face, my front teeth are big and they are no longer in line, and my complexion is shit.  When did I get so far gone I can't even appreciate what used to be my favorite thing about myself?  There has to be some way to fix this. There has to be a way to learn to love myself.  This madness has to stop.  The hatred in my head needs to go away.  I've had enough.  I want to love myself.  I want to take a picture and just see beauty, not pick it to pieces.  I want to take a photo with my kids where I'm not hiding behind them. Or take a photo of my family that I'm not afraid of posting just because I look fat.  I want to be able to take a picture without thinking about angles and cropping and hiding.  How do I do this?  How does a person learn to love themselves? How does a person learn to say thank you to a compliment instead of cringe.  

If there is a secret I would love to know it.  

At the end of Pitch Perfect when Anna Kendrick is getting ready to tell the new people what song they will audition for right before she says the song the movie cuts off.  WHY!  The entire movie is about music, it's about her music and when we get a chance to hear what song she would pick for people to sing it cuts off.  

That right now there is not a single Criminal Minds or Law and Order CI on any channel.  That is criminal.

People who smell like cat pee at the gym.

People who let out a fart so stinky I question whether or not they crapped their pants while I'm trying to run on the treadmill.

When I put sun screen on, still burn, and then two weeks later when I think I've avoided peeling I look down at the gym to see this:

Those would be blisters from the sweat that occurred while running.

When I obviously had no choice but to rub the blisters leaving my chest and shoulders looking like this:

Isn't it sexy?

When a new coffee creamer comes out and I can't find it anywhere.

When Pop Tart finally decides to come out with an amazing peanut butter Pop tart that taste exactly like a soft, melty peanut butter cookie, and I can't eat them because my son is deadly allergic to them.

When the doctor refuses to refill my sleeping medicine on time and I've gone over ten days now without my sleeping meds.

When the doctor said she will only prescribe .5mg Xannax pills instead of 1mg pills and then only give me 60 pills. It takes 1.5mg for me to sleep and 1mg for anxiety attacks.  Meaning no matter what happens, I will never have enough to get through the month. The least she could do is refill it on time.

Removing nail polish.

The fact that I cannot manage to not put my fingers in my  mouth after removing the polish.

When my dog shakes himself off right near my food and I can actually see the shit fly off him and onto my food.

That my husband weighs less then my 1st goal weight.

That he can't gain weight.

That I cannot lose weight no matter how much I work out.

That my car does not have a sun roof.

That no matter what soap I switch to, or what I do my arms, back and neck will not stop breaking out due to some kind of allergy that no one can pin down.

 

A few months ago I showed you all what was inside my SakRoots purse.  Remember, it was this purse. I loved that purse.  Stuff fit just right.  So imagine my dismay when one day the strap ripped clean off the bag.  I was a bit mad.  A lot mad.  Okay I was fucking pissed.  I went back to the store I bought the bag from, and since I had paid cash for it and lost the receipt they did not want to exchange the bag.  This was doubly annoying since the same bag was still sitting on the shelves, so obviously I wasn't trying to return an old ass bag.  I kind of threw a fit.  I told the store that this was the THIRD…THIRD!!! bag from their store that had ripped.   I finally told the lady to just fuck it, keep the bag and I would never shop at their store again.  The lady felt so bad for me that she went over the managers head, grabbed the new bag and made an exchange for me.  

However.  The sales lady also made a big production of begging me not to buy that same purse.  She said the brand had gone down hill, and considering my bag weighed 9lbs that she knew the new bag would break also.  I didn't have time to shop so I took the new bag and left.

27 days later the replacement bag broke.  In the same damn spot.

THE SAME SPOT.

I was seething.  I went back up to the store, receipt and tags in hand this time and asked for a store gift card.  I found this new purse by Fossil (whom I love)

It's basically everything I love in a purse.  It has front pockets for my keys and phone, and a second one for fast access lip gloss, lipstick, perfume and gum.  Inside there are four small pockets (most purses only have two) for tissues, lotion, and other random shit.  Then there is a full size zippered pocket along the liner of the purse.  It's as deep as the whole purse which I love because it means when I fill it up it doesn't weigh down the top side of the purse causing it to sink in. It's sturdy as shit, seriously this thing never bends.

In fact, it's so sturdy that my gun fits inside one of the pockets and that still doesn't bend the outside wall of the purse.  WHAT!

Everything fits in it perfectly.  My iPad mini drops right in.  Everything has a perfect spot.  It's just so much happiness.

But wait there is more!

I added a new bag inside of my purse.  The gym bag.  I took my first Ipsy makeup bag and converted it into my gym bag.

That means that now at all times I have my headphones, my new Polar watch (lurve), my gym locker lock, and my iPhone 5 adapter for the machines with the old chargers on it. 

Plus the new purse even has room for my water bottle and my towel, so now when I head to the gym I can carry every single thing I love in one bag.

But that's not even the best part.  The best part, is that I happened to walk into the store on a day there was a sale without knowing it.  So I picked up this bag, saw the price and found it was the same price as my SakRoots.  When I got to the check stand the purse was on sale.  It rang up at only FORTY DOLLARS.

SWOON

Fuck yeah!  Now I had extra money to spend.  So I did the most logical thing possible.  I went to the bra and panties section and purchased some new thong underwear and some of the cutest damn bandeau bra tops to lounge around the house in. I had enough to buy some chocolate truffles also.  I still have a $1.00 left on the gift card after all of that. So in the end it was a win win for me.  I am a little upset however that I contacted Sakroots on Twitter three times, even including a picture of the destroyed purse and I didn't hear a peep back. I was pretty shocked.  I expected a, "we are so sorry that happened," response or something. But I heard NOTHING.  I even posted to their Facebook.  I plan to email them letting them know that two of their purses broke within 50 days, in the same spot and that I'm not the only one because both of the stores sales associates told me the brand has gone down hill and that they have seen a decline in quality.  I'm pretty bent because they used to be a fairly decent brand.  

I'm thrilled to pieces that this whole mess led me to my fun new Fossil purse.