1. If, over the holidays, you ate your weight in peanut butter blossoms and chocolate nut clusters, you may want to consider that it’s time for a diet.

2. If you decide on a low-carb diet then, by all means, make sure you work in a place where homemade apple crisp is made so that you can test your willpower when you smell it.

3. And you see it.

4. And you watch 200 kids eating it.

5. If your low-carb diet allows you to eat certain carbs, like Grape Nuts and Shredded Wheat, they will taste like the best treat you’ve ever had.

6. Then you may find yourself going through a lot of Grape Nuts.

7. And toilet paper.

8. You may think that bread baked without flour is the worst thing you’ve ever tasted.

9. Until you try milled flax seed and soy hot cereal.

10. Even if you add a lot of cinnamon.

11. And Splenda.

12. If you are at the grocery store you might find yourself standing in the frozen food section seriously considering the purchase of low-carb ice cream.

13. But, then the rational part of you will realize that you’ll end up eating nothing but ice cream.

14. Then you may find yourself going home and being thankful that your pants feel just a little more loose.

15. And you’ll celebrate.

16. With a bowl of Grape Nuts.

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I am a self-admitted social media junkie. I enjoy connecting with people and having discussions about all kinds of topics. One day it may be a conversation about hair color (because some of us were stripped of natural highlights when we bore children…love you kids!) and the next day it could be about LOST (Kate should be with Jack, period).

So, guess what fell into my lap? A place where parents can talk about all things…well, parenty. Books, toys, gadgets, and open conversations about spit-up, bed wetting or even how to get rid of the cranberry juice that stains my son’s face. No really, if you know how to rid him of it please tell me. My husband calls it his “permanent undersmile”.

Back to that parenty place! I have even started my own group where you (yes, you) and I can connect outside of here. Just look over at the right sidebar for the box titled “Gettin’ Savvy With It”. If you don’t know where the right sidebar is, just follow my map…
I have already started a discussion and would love to hear your thoughts. Come on over and take a look around. Let’s connect and share! The only thing off limits are electric breast pumps, because some of us, who shall remain nameless (*cough* me *cough*) have some post-traumatic stress. And, sagginess.

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A few weeks ago, I pulled a back muscle when I was lifting a case of water. What? Water is heavy. And, sloshy. After it happened, I told my boss that you never realize how much you use your back until you can’t use it anymore.

On Wednesday night my husband suffered a grade 3 rupture of his gastrocnemius, which is a fancy way of saying he badly tore a big muscle in his calf. He was shooting hoops when it happened. Okay, not so much shooting hoops as he was coaching fifth-grade, girl’s basketball. What? Dribbling around 11 year old girls is hard. Especially if you’re 38.

Since then, he has been on crutches and unable to do much. And, let me just say that you never realize how much you use your husband until you can’t use him anymore.

Every single morning, rain, shine, sleet or snow (in Ohio, it’s mostly the rain, sleet and snow part) he walks our dogs. The 11 year old Labrador could probably survive without her daily jaunt, but there is no doubt that she is in such great shape because of my husband, so we like to keep her active.

However, the one year old Labrador, Daisy, needs this exercise. She needs it like I need water, and air and beer.

Every day, my husband walks three miles with the dogs. They run off-leash most of that distance and likely cover twice the ground he does. Then Daisy comes home with her thick tail whacking everything in its path, she grabs a toy, slobbers on my jeans and looks at me as if to say, “I’m just getting warmed up, lady. Let’s play!”

Thanks to my husband’s injury, for the past four days I have been walking the dogs. If you can call it that. It’s more like getting pulled down to the park, letting them off-leash, then running 200 yards through shin-deep snow, in my big, clunky snow boots, to get Daisy because she has run off to steal another dog’s ball.

It is exhausting and after only four days, my body is sore. My left hand is blistered, my ribs feel bruised, I have shin splits and my thigh muscles are like jello. It’s a workout like none other.

I’m actually kind of hoping that I rupture my gastrocnemius.

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When I was seven years old I got my first pair of eyeglasses. I clearly remember one of my second grade classmates calling me “four-eyes”, until our teacher heard him and made him stop and apologize. I hated those glasses.

In junior high school, I was one of the few girls who had to wear glasses. It was the 80’s and, as luck would have it, kids started wearing “fake” glasses to look cool. This would have been perfect for my pubescent-self had they actually made nice looking prescription glasses back then. While everyone was walking around in black, round, plastic frames, I was stuck with gold, oval ones. I hated those glasses too.

When I was finally old enough, I got contacts. I have to be honest, I was not a big fan. My eyes were always dry and itchy, they were a pain to take care of and there is no feeling like having a gas-permeable contact lens that gets lost in your eye. If there had been a better selection of eyeglass frames on the market, I would have never stuck those things in my eyes.

Thankfully, along came LASIK! I was one of the first people to sign up, but the doctor wouldn’t do the surgery until I had been contact-free for six months. By this point in my life, I was nearly blind and my glasses were thick and chunky. My co-workers called them pop bottles. Guess how much I hated that pair?

But, it was worth it to walk around like Mr. Magoo for six months so I could get LASIK! I liked it so much, I got it twice. That’s right. I had LASIK twice, and guess who still has to wear glasses? Mmm hmm. That would be me.

I certainly wasn’t going back to contacts after knowing how good my eyes felt after more than a year without them. Luckily, times have changed and there are companies making good looking frames now. Like this cute pair I just got from GlassesUSA.com.

Here’s me (and my son whose identity I’m concealing for his privacy…okay, not true, I’m just a bad photographer) sporting my new, funky, bold, brown-on-top, clear-on-the-bottom glasses. You know you love them.

And, because I love you, I went and got you a 5% discount with this great company (not that you need it, with prices as unbelievable as theirs). Plus, they’re good people. Their returned eyeglasses are not restocked, but instead are recycled and donated to organizations throughout the United States and provided to people who can’t afford vision care.

The discount code is Mommy5 and it never expires. See? Good people.

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