The 48-hour period from Friday through Saturday was a rough one. Snoring Daddy was out of town for most of the week and Friday afternoon/early evening was supposed to see him home to give me a bit of relief. “Supposed to” is the key phrase here. What really happened went something like this.

Friday morning: Get up with the kids, anxious for the day to go by so that I could go pick up husband in Oklahoma City.

3:00pm: Text message Snoring Daddy to ask when he thought I should load up the kids to head south. Receive text back that he thought I should leave around 4pm. Crap. I did not get my workout done in time. Run upstairs to take a shower.

4:00pm: Wrangle the children, trying to load them up in the van. Repeatedly yell at preschooler to get off the swing set we just built last week and get in the minivan.

4:10pm: After finally buckling in the kids, get in, start the car. Nothing happened. WTF!? Try again. Nothing. Unload the kids and let them play on the swings.

4:11pm: Call Snoring Daddy. Decide battery is dead, and have him talk me through jumpstarting it using the jump box. Nothing. Start melting down because I want my husband home now, I am frustrated, hot, and the sweat is dripping off me. Decide to try the big battery charger from the garage because maybe the jump box is not charged. Still nothing.

4:20pm: Hang up with Snoring Daddy who has something going on where he is and wait for him to call back.

4:20-4:50pm: Decide to make dinner after talking to Snoring Daddy several more times and determining that he will get a ride all the way back home instead of just meeting us in Oklahoma City.

5:30pm: Another friend of husband’s arrives to try jump-starting the van. It starts immediately, I jump up and down and squeal with joy and then disgust when I realize I did not have the jumper cables on the posts right.

5:30-6:00pm: Eat dinner. Talk with Snoring Daddy again and find out that he and his friend had to go back to Ardmore because the guy’s 21-year-old son has been missing for several hours. They find him quickly—in jail in Texas.

6:30-7:30pm: I clean up the kitchen, put away the leftover food, and run to town to get some cash. I am still going to go pick up husband even if I have to drive all the way to Ardmore in the middle of the night. His ass is coming home.

7:30pm: Run back home to make sure I turned off the stove. I did. Head to Oklahoma City.

8:45pm: Stop at the hospital to check on stepmother and visit with oldest stepbrother and sister-in-law to kill a little time before going any further south. Husband has gone back to Texas with his friend to help bail out the son and drive home the truck and trailer he was hauling back from Texas. They were not quite ready to leave Texas to head back to Ardmore yet.

9:00pm-10:00pm: Deal with shock of how bad step mom appears to be. Kids hang out with their aunt in the waiting room, while I visit in the ICU with stepbrother. Then we all discuss the situation and the need to make sure a DNR is in place—-just in case.

10:05pm: Kids are getting tired and hungry, decide to leave. Husband is leaving Texas soon.

10:20pm: Stop at a convenience store in southern Oklahoma City to use the bathroom and find drinks and snacks for everyone.

10:30pm: While loading children and buckling them in get approached by a man asking for “gas money” because he’s stranded after driving all the way from Texas and has no money. Tell him, “Sorry, I don’t have any to give.” (I did, but I needed it in case of an emergency for me and the kids.) Hate that my back is to this guy while buckling my kids in. Prepare to kick the shit out of him if he tries anything.

10:35pm: Get the hell out of that parking lot and drive south on I-35 towards Ardmore. Children fall asleep quickly and stay that way.

12:00-12:30am: Finally arrive at the home of my husband’s friend. Get the grand tour of the place, as it is my first visit. They want us to stay, but I have to refuse as staying anywhere we can’t control the childproofing is never an option when it comes to our preschooler. Besides, we have to get back home to attend niece’s one-year birthday party the next day—and buy her a present.

1:00am: Finally leave to head home. I catch husband up on stepmother and stepbrothers then he catches me up on what happened with his friend and his friend’s son.

3:40am: Arrive home. Put the kids to bed.

4:00am: Finally go to bed with husband.

Late Sunday morning: Get up and get ready to go shop for niece’s birthday present.

2:20pm: Go shopping. Buy present.

3:00pm: Arrive at party. We are the first ones there.

6:00pm: Leave party. Place cell phone on top of the minivan while loading the children who were all whining and griping that they didn’t want to leave the party.

6:05pm: Realize cell phone is missing at the same time we receive a phone call on husband’s phone from his sister that they found my cell phone in the parking lot where it had been run over.

MOTHEREFFER.

6:10pm: Pick up phone. Cry over the loss of my beloved black jack, yet another phone lost to a stupid mistake.

6:15pm: Realize the phone still works, but the display is destroyed. No more text messaging on this phone. And the battery says it’s dying. It shouldn’t be, I had just charged it. Decide there must be a short in it somewhere.

6:30pm: Arrive home, while consoling oldest son who is distraught that my cell phone is destroyed. He’s upset that the picture of him and his brother and sister that I use for the background is lost. Assure him that I had that picture saved to a computer.

6:45pm: Prove to him that the picture is safe on the computer.

He finally calms down.

Do some things I can’t remember before finally deciding to go get something to eat.

8:00pm: Go eat.

8:30pm: Dump water all over oldest son’s lap. We both cry.

8:50pm: Go home and send children to bed.

11:00pm: Beg husband to go to bed. Pray that the next day will be better.

And it was. Thank goodness, it was much better. My stepmother was alert when I visited her Sunday.

She smiled, nodded, and tried to communicate despite the tube down her throat that has been helping her to breath since last Wednesday when she had her last surgery to place a vacuum in her stomach and drainage tube in her chest. She looked the best she had all week—and I’m finally beginning to feel more optimistic about her chances of recovery. Only time will tell how full of a recovery it will be. Thanks again to all of you praying for her recovery.

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Yesterday, while I was visiting my stepmother at the hospital in Oklahoma City (She was alert and trying to communicate finally. She even smiled at me. Yay!), my husband worked on one of many project cars, while the children played in their 10 foot wide by 30 inches deep pool.

Demolition Preschooler decided to take one of the kittens swimming, putting an abrupt end to playing outdoors, but not before getting a bit sunburned. Snoring Daddy forgot to slather on the sunscreen. I know, shocker. Don’t worry, he’s a lovely shade of brown this morning—the three and half year old is brown not my husband, he’s still white with varying shades of pink.

Last night after his bath, I spread aloe vera gel all over his wiry, lean little back and shoulders. He giggled as the coolness of the gel touched his skin and he said in his sweet little Preschooler voice, “What about my little nipples. Put it on my little nipples.”

“No, I’m done,” I said as I tried to keep from laughing. I don’t like to encourage his talk about nipples. It’s just a bit disturbing. And creepy.

“Did you put some on my guns?” he asked as he lifted each arm to look at his biceps.

At that point I could not suppress the laughter. Snoring Daddy couldn’t either. He was bent over, practically falling out of his chair.

“What else are they called?” Surely he knew the answer. He smiled at me blankly. Apparently not.

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As of this morning, I have lost the first 10% of my starting body weight. 31 lbs are gone and I mean for them to stay gone for good this time. Sunday will mark the end of my eighth week back on sparkpeople and rededicated to changing my lifestyle, achieving my health goals, and maintaining them.

I have no idea how I will reward myself. We don’t have the money to spare to spend on anything “extra” right now. I’d like a new pair of tennis shoes, a heart rate monitor, and a really nice pedometer that can go in my pocket instead of clipped to my waistband where it falls off over and over again. But all that will have to wait.

Right now, my reward will have to be the satisfaction in knowing that I can fit back into some smaller sized clothes in my closet. My reward will be retiring a few pairs of pants that are so big they fall off me. I think that’s enough.

I don’t need external rewards right now. The reward of feeling better, stronger, more flexible, and having more stamina is enough. Being able to sprint up the stairs to the second floor of our home is enough. Sleeping on my back without pain or having to get up to go pee every fifteen minutes due to the pressure on my bladder is enough.

It is reward enough to know that I’m learning moderation and making changes that I can live with and maintain for the rest of my life.

*cross posted at my sparkpeople blog and the message boards on Sparkpeople.com

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That’s their new nickname. The Hooligans. I think it fits quite well for my spawn.

Their daddy is out of town until Friday, away at some big important round table meeting, leaving me here alone with them. This means I most definitely cannot take off for Oklahoma City to visit my stepmom in the hospital. There are only two people allowed at a time in the ICU unit and let’s face it, the ICU is not a place for a nearly 7 year old, a 5 year old, and a 3 and half year old, anyway.

It pains me to be unable to do anything to help other than make phone calls from here at home. But the reality is that, it is all I can do, for now.

I would attempt to work on my thesis but my mind keeps straying to my stepmom and my youngest step-brother who is bearing the bulk of the responsibility of being there and taking care of her various affairs and communicating with doctors and nurses.

While he does that and I am stuck here with my three hooligans, I am playing Wii Fit. I need to get back to working out every day. I’ve been off track for the past week or so and it’s time to get back to it. So I’m exercising my body in an effort to keep my mind from wondering and worrying and to keep myself from turning to food for comfort and distraction. And in between Wii Fit play I text message my husband and log activities and post to the message boards at Sparkpeople.com.

This is probably the healthiest I have handled stress—well, ever, in my entire life. It may take me a while sometimes, but eventually I do learn. The combined stress of it all is not going to send me running for the cookies like it has in the past. I am not going to sabotage myself and use stress as an excuse anymore.

P.S. Thanks to all who are offering their good thoughts, prayers and positive vibes for my stepmother. It means a great deal to me to have your kind support through this.

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Where a car runs into a truck load of live chickens, scattering them all over the road?

It’s a classic, right?

Well in a case of life (almost) imitating art, yesterday, something caused my stepmother to drive her car into a semi-truck load of frozen chickens, scattering them across the southbound lanes of I-35 on the way into Oklahoma City. She was heading north. The truck was heading south. The accident shut down the interstate for about three hours while authorities cleaned it up.

The truck driver was sent to the hospital too, but his injuries appear to be minor. Luckily there was no one else around.

She’s in pretty bad shape, though. We still haven’t been able to talk with her to find out what happened. She was in surgery for around six hours yesterday and is now in the ICU and expected to return to surgery tomorrow and again in a few more days after that. She’s in a great deal of pain and is on so much medication that it keeps her mostly knocked out.

My stepmother has had health problems for many years, even before my dad passed away four and half years ago. It has continued to decline since then. Her poor body has been through hell and this is yet another ordeal. If you are the praying kind, I’d appreciate a few on her behalf. I’ll take any good vibes and positive thoughts too.

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