S.O.S - SAVE OUR SUMMERS!

i was a bit dismayed when i walked through walmart at the beginning of july to not find mid aisle displays of fireworks and beack towels...no there was none because they had already pulled out the quarter markers and ten cent crayons....

school supplies in july is not cool. now i'm down with some qvc christmas in july specials, but NOT school supplies. a line has been crossed...but walmart is not fully to blame.

school is starting earlier and earlier and earlier each year. i am starting professional development on the 3rd, while many surrounding counties will be starting school that early. may i add that my last day of school was june 6th. craziness.

i know i'm getting old and my memory is fading, but summer break just isn't what it used to be when i was kiddo... i know, i know. it sounds like the beginning to a story where i walk 5 miles in the snow uphill, barefoot....but i'm just saying that summer breaks are flying by and i was recently given some info about this new trend.

check this out: SAVE OUR SUMMERS KENTUCKY


Save Our Summers Kentucky is a grass roots statewide coalition of parents, students, and educators concerned about the impact of early to mid-August start dates on our students, families, schools and communities.
As the importance of standardized tests has grown, the school start dates have moved closer and closer to August 1. Many school districts have even experimented with non-traditional school calendars in hopes of raising test scores.
Research clearly shows that the school calendar configuration does not impact academic performance, but does increase non-instructional costs and thus, takes valuable tax dollars out of our classrooms and away from our students and teachers.

Check out this website to find more info, contact legislators, and sign a petition:
http://www.savekentuckysummers.com/

The only school supplies I want to see on sale in July is sidewalk chalk! I dedicate this blog to all the high school kids out there who have waited until this week to start their summer reading.

are you there blog? it's me, abby.

i have not blogged in forever....first slow internet, then no internet...but now i have fast internet AND insomnia, so bring on the late night pecks at the keyboard against the soft glow the computer screen while i listened to my hubby and baby snore in the background. livin the dream.

how about a bulleted list of quick updates:

• Charley is 15 months going on 13..she rolls her eyes at me and throws tantrums with every "no" i utter.
• I spend my spare time looking into good boarding schools for girls.
• Gary will soon be off every Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
• I spend my spare time looking into good marriage counselors. ;)
• No move on the house yet. We have found a place in Mt. Sterling that we like but we are just waiting on SOMEONE/ANYONE to show remote interest in our home. I am one more month away from going door to door in random apartment buildings asking people if they are ready to get out of apartment life and move up to trailer park life....
• gary, charley and i were blessed with a vacay in destin with the lee fam....it was a blast...pics are on facebook.
• school starts in a few weeks and i didn't even scrape the surface on my reading list, take my GRE, which led to me not taking a single summer school class, i didn't lose an ounce of weight that i swore i would.....i can't decide if summer went too fast for if i just wasted a lot of time...
• most recently, i have lost my contact in my eye --- excuse me for a bit---------

alright - now that we are squared away.... i will leave you with this...my next purchase....as is the first thing i do tomorrow when i wake up....

ladies and gentlemen....i give you a blend of something i love and something i should love a heck of a lot more than what i do.....

THE FITFLOP.... www.fitflop.com

it seems as if the angels themselves have conspired together to create a shoe just for abby adams thomas. many are aware of my affection for the flip flop, but now there is the lil magic shoe called the fitflop that is quote, "biochemically enginered" to tone your legs when you walk. it is like the hybrid car of footwear...it is both comfy and good for you. the fitflop, somehow in its infinite magical wonder, allows you to get a workout as you walk around....that's it...put the lil sucker on and walk.....how cool is that....i'm sold. i'm in. running shoes? no thank you. i've got my flops. i will express mail a pair and keep you posted.

in the meantime, dear jesus thank you for giving me the fitflop. could you please turn your attention to ice cream that burns calories as you eat it? just wondering. when you get time. after world peace, maybe? thanks. hugs and amen, abby.

mr. mom

today i got to play with charley just about all day - she took a HUGE nap at my moms which allowed me to run out and grab a way overdue haircut. i love playing with her and spending saturdays with her...i am going to MISS HER LIKE CRAZY when i am in DC. :( i decided to go to DC a while ago and i am beginning to regret this decision. four days away from my baby girl is A LOT, but at the same time I don't want to be so overly attached that i can 'never' leave'her...honestly i know she will not be affected in any way by my absence, even though i'd like to think otherwise! :) i am lucky that my husband can step up and is really a good involved daddy...I truly trust my husband and his ability to care for her ---HOWEVER i totally want to get a nanny cam to watch the antics of our version of 'daddy daycare' ---

here's what i know:
1. any time i have left the two of them alone, i always come back to a house that is destroyed. i'm talking toys spread from kitchen to bathroom. food and cups all over the place. there has even been a case where the sunday paper was involved (not pretty)
2. gary doesn't dress charley. i leave clothes out for him to put on her. if the outfit is not 'simple' enough he improvises (which is always interesting) sometimes he pulls out clothes that i didn't know she had... mostly when he is in charge charley is sporting only a diaper and there are 2-3 food covered shirts in the floor.
3. gary still gags when he has to change a poopy diaper. i mean he dry heaves and struggles through the whole ordeal. he will have at least 2 a day...sooooo...
4. gary has only bathed charley 2-3 times by himself. i bet the bath will be thrown out altogether and he just tries to spritz her with some body spray each day -- kinda like he handles his own personal hygiene.
5. gary feeds and gives charley whatever she wants to eat, or whatever he is eating. so unless gary becomes a vegan over the next 48 hours, charley will be addicted to big macs and beef jerky by next saturday.
6. apparently only the person who carried the baby in her womb is capable of hearing the child's every movement throughout the night. i'll probably be 7 hours away and still be able to hear charley cry before he does...
7. Gary has never done daycare 'drop off' - this is where your heart breaks for a few minutes everday...she'll be unenrolled by next week and he'll have quit his job to take care of her.

feel free to check in with gary this week..i know that quote says 'it takes a village to raise a child"...i'm pretty sure they never intended for the village idiot to help out (by himself at least)

so i have discovered that the best way to kick off a diet is with a hardcore stomach bug...it's cheaper than laxatives! (but equally as unpleasant) :)

in the meantime, my daughter is eating healthy. she weighed in yesterday at a whopping 25lbs. 10 oz .... 31 1/4 inches height!

we are trying to give up the bottle and transitioning pretty well to cow's milk! bye bye similac!!

as you tell she mostly favors her kool-aid (sugar free, of course) though you wouldn't have known it y the way she clutched her sippy cup and ran through the house!

diet RIGHT

today, gary and i have committed to start a weight loss-get fit plan. it has beena long time coming. no more excuses, ridiculous rationales, or blatant avoidance. i have to lose weight! i figured that going public with this may motivate me a little more than just having my personal, private stare down with the scale behind the locked bathroom door.
i have a lot of bad habits to break and a lot of obstacles in the way. having a one year old and a time consuming job does not make a regular exercise regiment easy - but i am going to change the way i think about exercise - it no longer has to be 2 solids hours in a gym...i'm just to take what i can get when i can get it! at the same time i am going to have to stretch my daily schedule even thinner by regularly planning and preparing healthy meals. no more grabbing whatever the lunch ladies slop on my plate and i am going to have to break away from the apparent gravitational pull that McDonalds and Dairy Queen have on my fat butt! The biggest problem will be ending my emotional relationship with food. I eat when i am happy, when i am sad, when i am angry, when i am bored, if i am celebrating something, if i am stressed...you name it and i can find a reason to eat! but i read something that stated, stomachs are not trash can...so that is my underlying philosphy - i will stop mindlessly throwing junk into my body.

motivations? i owe this to the 20 year old version of myself that worked her butt off to lose a ton of weight, only to be sabotaged 7 years later. my 10 year high school reunion, i am not going to lie and say that i don't care what those people think of me...I do, it's natural. my daughter...i want to be more active for her and i don't want to go to her tball games on a rascal in a moomoo.

so here goes...the trek to lose 60 lbs. - i will keep you posted...

round and roud it goes, where it stops nobody knows...

what a difference a year makes.

really though, what a difference a baby makes.

it is incredible to digest that a year ago today i was checking into the hospital completely naive to the role I was stepping into. neither gary nor i could have guessed this is what parenthood is. i can't help but think about that scene in the movie Parenthood where steve martin realizes the truth behind metaphor that 'life is rollercoaster' and he envisions the room around him spinning as though he was buckled down into a whirling roller coaster car...it's absolutely true...this whole parenthood ride is a roller coaster.

during pregnancy i slowly climbed that scary hill completely blind to the track that lay before me. tons of anticipation built inside of me and sometimes if i strained i could kind of see what was ahead --- even so it always scared me to death. then suddenly, with little warning on may6, 2008 i hurdled down a hill, screaming, hands flying wildly above my head and my face making a god awful expression that was inevitably caught in a unsuspecting snapshot that i could buy for 25.99. since that day i have been thrown side to side, up and down, jerked and pulled, sometimes with overwhelming joy and sometimes with indescribable fear. at times i could sit back and enjoy the ride, while other times it was all i could do to not to throw myself from car. all the while, i've been strapped down in a filthy, germy car covered in some other person's puke and urine (admittedly my own urine too), with food crumbs all over the place...not to mention my hands clutching a bar that doesn't let me steer.

i am still in the car waiting for the next turn or loop or 150 foot drop that shoves my stomach into my throat...but i somehow how know in the back of my mind that it is all worth it and, just like riding a roller coaster, i will LOVE the experience when it is all over with..... and who knows i might someday jump back in line to do it all over again (depends on how long that line is...i'm getting old, you know). but if i don't get back in line when i get off this ride, i'll just amble around the amusement park dressed in an air brushed t-shirt, plastic visor, and a fanny pack carrying a coffee in one hand and an oversized bag full of useless crap in the other --trying to find the bathroom.
happy birthday charley anne.

MSU Game/Potential Home Buyers

GO EAGLES!!!

Well, if Charley were to become a cheerleader I think she would definately be the 'base' - God bless her. Thighs like that have a tendency to keep one planted on the ground and aren't aren't made to be thrown in the air. So, I guess it is settled ...no cheerleading!

We are excited about the game tonight. I brought about 20 MSU shirsts to school today to outfit all my kids. Hopefully, I will get to watch some of the game, but someone (thank goodness) is coming to look at our house tomorrow and I HAVE to clean...the bananas smashed in the floor and pet hair covered carpet are apparently not selling points according to HGTV standards.

However, if this showing doesn't work out, I think I may start to advertise our house as a home/small business inorder to be more marketable...maybe this would attract those young couples who want to start their own meth lab business, but stay close to home...you know, for their children's sake.