Psalm of the Blub-Blub Sisterhood

A few may have noticed the button on my sidebar - the link to Our BlubHer Overhaul. A few of us gals have gotten together to do a bloggy support group for weight loss. We vary in what we want to lose, but we are united in our support and acceptance of each other, so much so that we have nicknamed ourselves "The Blub-Blub Sisterhood."

This morning I walked through the cafeteria of the hospital I was helping for the day. I knew that I wanted protein and that was about it. On the way, I had to pass all the homemade goodies of their wonderful cook: peach cobbler, butterscotch-caramel brownies, three kinds of scones, muffins, coffee cake, and cookies. I felt as if I was walking through the valley of the shadow of junk food. And then this idea hit me: a psalm for the sisterhood, based on Psalm 23:

The Lord is my personal trainer; I shall not wallow in sloth.
He maketh me jog through green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the spring water counter.
He restoreth my body.
He leadeth me in the path of fitness for my health's sake.

Yea, though I power-walk through the valley of the shadow of soda and cookies,
I will fear no weakness; for thou art with me.
Thy vegetables and protein bars; they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me of healthy food choices
in the presence of mine fast-food enemies;
Thou annointest my head with monounsaturated oil;
My cup of green tea runneth over.

Surely health and skinny jeans shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I will dwell in the house of self-confidence forever.

(Amen)

Introducing.....

Three posts in one day?? I KNOW!!! Don't faint on me!!

My gorgeous, lovely, hilarious, free-spirited, friend Ed over at The Big Picture According to Ed has FINALLY posted, after having her blog up for several weeks!!!

Ed is my sister-in-spirit, a fearsomely honest, admirably frank, unfailingly loyal woman who shares my passion for self-improvement and brutal introspection. Her writing is refreshingly free-form; a stark contrast to my own tightly-reined style, shackled by my obsessive attention to grammatical and punctuational rules and regulations.

Ed is a passionate woman with an eternal focus on The Big Picture. She detests "minus-work," dishonesty, and has zero tolerance for narrow-mindedness or self-centeredness. If you can measure up enough to earn her friendship, you will be blessed with her loyalty for life.

She's going through some rough times right now, especially with her husband of almost 10 years; ironically, her aforementioned loyalty and honesty is her Achilles Heel. But with her unwavering faith in the importance of The Big Picture, it's bound to work out as it should.

Please visit her blog. She needs a bit of encouragement to light a fire under her ass! When she sees those comments coming in, she'll be hooked. I know it!

So go on! Scram! And tell her Mom In Scrubs sent ya.

Just don't forget to come back....=)

A Pause to Remember

This time of year I always start thinking more about my late Grandpa. His name was Milo, aka "Mike," and he is my mother's father, my maternal grandfather. He has been gone now for seven years....wow, it's hard to believe. He died suddenly, in his sleep, three days after Plato was born. We hadn't even left the hospital with our newborn yet when I got the call from my mother telling me that Grandma had found Grandpa dead that morning, in his bed with a peaceful expression on his face.

The timing of his death couldn't have been much worse for me, but how selfish is that? At his funeral, I was strapped in tight to that postpartum hormonal, overwhelmed, sleep-deprived rollercoaster; at its complete mercy: no steering wheel for me. I remember sitting in the church trying desperately to hold it together by focusing on my squirming newborn. I did not need to hear what a wonderful man he was, loving husband, father, and grandfather. I knew all that in my very core; hearing it out loud would surely put me over the emotional edge.

One phrase, however, breached the walls of my hastily-spun mental cocoon. The priest's voice boomed, "...and most recently, great-grandfather to newborn Plato, whom he never got to meet but whose arrival he looked forward to greatly."

I lost it. I don't lose it often. And my "losing it" doesn't involve hysterics or theatrics. It's a forced loss of control, a trait I cling to fiercely. Losing my desperate grip on my control, I cried, hard but quietly. The effort of trying to control such a raw and powerful emotion left me unable to inhale, instead gasping in great, echoing, hiccup-like breaths; which turned heads, garnered sympathetic looks, and sent me spiraling into uncontrollable sobs. The worst thing anyone can offer me when I'm upset is compassion.

I couldn't wait to get outside, to the cemetery. I gulped the humid air. Barely cooler than my lungs, it offered little relief. The crowd around me, simultaneously sympathetic and curious about my infant, was inevitable but unwanted.

The graveside ceremony is a blur; I spent most of the time attending to the curious who wanted a peek or a cuddle with 6-day old Plato. He was a gem, alert and cooing at everyone who held him. After the graveside service, I walked to the grave to say goodbye. My eyes watered anew as I gazed at the headstone. I remember Grandpa and Grandma taking us by their burial plot to show us the headstone they'd had made. On his side was a farm scene, representing his life as a farmer. On hers, a desk with an apple and ruler, signifying her career as a second-grade teacher. At the time I just thought it was creepy: the names with birth dates and empty spots for the death dates. In a moment of clarity, I was suddenly able to appreciate the significance of the earlier visit to the grave. He was showing us how he had made arrangements in preparation for this very day.

My Grandfather was a planner. Of course he had planned much of his own funeral. It was his nature. He was forever reading Consumer Reports and having discussions with my father about the latest products. He never had the internet. It's probably for the best - I'm certain he would have been addicted! I credit him heartily with my own appetite for knowledge, but where I am hungry for it, he was voracious. Five years before he died, he had a devastating stroke that left him essentially paralyzed on one side. His mind was quite intact, however. After the stroke, he had been researching stroke treatment advances, particularly the area of stem cell possibilities. Every time he would see his doctor, he would ask hopefully, "How are they coming on those stem cell studies?" Alas, there was never any good news. Seven years later, they are still not, to my knowledge, doing stroke therapy with stem cells, but he would be excited to know that they are doing studies with autologous stem cells (from a person's own body) and tissue damaged by heart attack. A stroke is a brain attack: brain tissue can't be far away.

Before Plato was born, Grandpa asked all kinds of questions about my pregnancy. He was fascinated by the ultrasound pictures I showed him. His mind seemed to be slowing down a bit, but that couldn't squelch his eternal curiosity. The last words he said to me were, "Take care of my great-grandson," as he hugged me across my burgeoning belly from his wheelchair with his good arm and kissed me on my cheek with his drooping mouth. His eyes were still sharp and bright despite his broken body, and they sought mine as he said those words, making sure I understood him clearly.

The day after I delivered, my parents went to visit Grandpa, and brought pictures of Plato. He asked about the birth, digging for the details, and scrutinizing the pictures carefully. Looking back, I wonder if he knew subconsciously that he would never meet his first great-grandchild face-to-face?

My Grandmother came to me on the day of her husband's funeral and actually comforted me. She, who had lost the man she had been married to for over 50 years, put her arms around me and held me. She held Plato in her arms for the first time that day, and remarked on the miracle of life, and how sad yet amazing it was that Grandpa had left this life so close to the time that Plato had entered it.

To this day I feel there is a strong metaphysical connection between Plato and the Great-Grandfather he never knew. It may sound hokey to some, but I actually feel his presence at times around my son. Maybe he is watching over him, or maybe he is still curious?

Mother's Day Post

It's Mother's Day again...it always sneaks up on me. Partly because we don't really plan anything "special" for the holiday. My idea of a perfect Mother's Day is a quiet day with the kids and JeepMan, maybe going to a movie or a park, just hanging out. Fancy brunch? Big gifts? Corsages and hoopla? Not my bag. Maybe when I'm older, but right now I like to celebrate Mother's Day by being a mom.

Unfortunately I get so caught up in my own motherhood that I tend to forget it's not just a special day for me, but for my own Mom, and JeepMan's Mom, and even the Grandmas (we each have one living, aren't we blessed?). Which is why there is no card in the mail as we speak for any of the above. It's lame, and maybe a little self-centered...I've just been so busy I forgot. Vaguely in my mind I've been semi-conscious that Mother's Day is "coming up;" now all of a sudden it's HERE.

My gift for Mother's Day is twofold: JeepMan came home today from Utah. I can't even tell you how happy I was to see him!! I always maintain that my alone-time is sacred and I don't get enough of it...well, I had my fill. A week with no kids and no husband is just too much. I have actually been lonely, and it's been a very, very long time since I could say that.

Also we're picking up the kids today from the MIL's. I am sure they will be spoiled-rotten, sugar-crazed, whiny, and cranky. Funny, MIL says they're always just perfect until I get there. What. Ever. I just smile politely and repeat my "MIL mantra" (in my head):

We're lucky we have family around to give us a break...we're lucky we can have couple-time...the kids aren't any worse for wear...their baby teeth will fall out so it doesn't matter if they haven't been brushed for a whole darn week....lalala, lalala...ohmmmm......

Anyhow, the point of this post is that this IS my Mother's Day Card for my own Mom. She reads this blog, so she will certainly read this.

My Mom didn't start out as my friend. She was, first and foremost, a Mother. As I grew and matured, our friendship developed, but she'll always, always be Mom first.

Mom had me when she was young (23), and a newlywed. There wasn't much time for her and Dad to be newlyweds before I came along. I was a surprise and, I suspect, a fairly large impetus in their decision to wed. 35 years later, they're still happily married, so I consider myself to have been a serendipitous surprise. From The Now, we can look back and say, "How wonderful...what a lovely story." I suspect, however, that it wasn't always sunshine and roses.

From my own experience, I know that children drastically change a couple's life. They add stress. They add chaos. They bring out the little differences in people and amplify them exponentially. Don't get me wrong, kids are fantastic! I wouldn't trade mine for the world, and if I had to make the choice again, I'd do it all over without hesitation. I'm just saying that it was a damned hard transition. JeepMan and I had the benefit of five years married and 3 together before that. My folks had 6 months married, and only a few more together before their wedding.

I can't imagine having a brand new husband that I was still getting to know, a baby on the way, and a life to desperately arrange! And yet my childhood was amazing. My parents got along so well, and if there were fights, my sister and I certainly weren't witness to them. Mom tells the story of how she had my sister and I packed up and ready to leave Dad at one point because he wouldn't quit smoking. I used to giggle crazily over that story, mostly because I couldn't imagine my mother taking that kind of stand...not in a million years! Dad must have been equally impressed because he did, in fact, quit smoking.

Mom worked part-time as a nurse (my inspiration!) and still made time to lavish us with affection and attention. Some of my favorite memories are of finger-painting at the kitchen table, baking chocolate-chip cookies (I thought she was SO strong because she could beat that stiff cookie dough with a wooden spoon!), Mom reading us Dr. Seuss and Disney books, lying on the floor with her for those special rare times when she would play Barbies with Tiff and I. I loved going out to the garden with her to plant, weed, and harvest. I became a "rock-hound" walking our gravel road with Mom, eyes down, scanning for that telltale glint that might be a shiny quartz crystal among the dusty chunks of limestone.

She and Dad were a united front: them against us. Oh, if one told you "no," you could try to hit up the other but it was pretty rare for them to disagree. I really only remember two times where I was left slack-jawed because of my mother's blatant defiance of my dad's wishes.

The first time, I was about 9 or 10. We had gone to the "big city," the capitol of our state, which was 30 miles away. We went there frequently as there wasn't much to do in our little town. We had shopped most of the day, and when it was time for supper we were all famished, but couldn't agree on what to eat. This was not unusual, but in the end someone would always compromise and we would come to a group consensus. This time there was no consent: we girls had all compromised and decided we would be OK with Chinese, but Dad wanted nothing to do with it! He finally got so disgusted that he just drove us home. We were so hungry, Tiff and I cried the whole way home. We pulled into the driveway, and as Dad opened the door to get out, Mom said, "Girls! Stay in the car. We're going out for Chinese. The Heck with your Dad!" And by golly, that's just what we did. We all felt strangely defiant, like co-conspirators against Dad, but it was a lot of fun and a great bonding experience with Mom.

The other time Mom put her foot down had results that were a lot more permanent. It was the summer before my Sophomore year of high school. Dad had been working a lot, and when he wasn't working, it seemed like he was on the golf course more than he was home. This was kind of unusual...Dad wasn't a big golfer in general, but he had certainly found a renewed enthusiasm that particular summer. The common goal of the summer for my sister and I was to talk our folks into letting us get a puppy. Mom was "iffy," Dad was dead-set against it. We begged and begged, and every Sunday when the classifieds came out we would scour the ads looking for Pug Puppies. It was hit-or-miss as there didn't seem to be a lot of Pug breeders in the area. One Sunday, we showed Mom a new ad. Dad was off golfing. The breeder wasn't too far away, maybe 20 miles, and we begged her to take us, just to look. Were we surprised when she said, "We might do more than just LOOK...your father has been doing an awful lot of golfing this summer; I think we girls might just have to go get us a puppy." We waited until he got home: she told him how it was going to go down, then off we went! After a wimpy attempt at protest, dad packed us all into the car. It was like he knew not to argue about this one. And we came home with the cutest little pug puppy you ever did see.

I could write pages and pages here, but the point of all this is that my Mom is the absolute best. I love you Mom...Happy Mother's Day.

When I was an infant, she sustained me. When I was a child, she guided me. When I was a teen, she watched over me. When I was an adult, she lovingly released me. And when I became a Mother, she became a Grandmother... and my friend. Through it all, she has been my rock, my foundation, my home. Through it all, she has loved me, and in so doing, personified the quintessence of motherly love. - mom-in-scrubs

Hay Chihuahua!!

Well, Folks, here he is: the man I consider to be the hottest on the planet.

Brendan Fraser

Hottie-Mc-Hottiepants. Dr. McHottie. The Hotinator. Makin' Hotcakes.

Now, I'd take this guy any way I could get him. He looks great all the time, no matter what the hairstyle or the clothes (or lack thereof). But the guy's also FUNNY. And humble. He doesn't seem to put on any airs or get caught up in all the Hollywood BS. He's just a super hot guy who doesn't even know how hot he is.





Ifirst fell in love with him in Encino Man. He played a lovable caveman and I remember him (vividly) slathered in red clay mud and pretty much nothing else. Woo Hoo!

When the kids wanted to rent George of the Jungle I sort of groaned. Look

ed stupid to me. But then this guy swung into the scene....Hay Papi!! I like George!! I like him a lot.




George no shirt? Very very good....

Black and White or color? Hmmmm.... I'll take both please!

When finding pics and info for this blog, I was surprised to find out that Brendan and his wife of 9 years Afton Smith had divorced back in December. Which bums me out because one of the reasons I liked him was he seemed sort of above-it-all with the Hollywood scene. And because they have 3 beautiful young sons. ...'Course, who knows, Hollywood may have had nothing to do with it.

Either way he is now single. Hmmmm.....

What I'd really like to know is where these pictures came from and what time period they were taken in:

They're kind of hard to see and I couldn't find them in bigger pixels but basically, from left to right, it's Fraser in a Fig Leaf, Fraser as Adonis, Fraser as Mercury, and Fraser as Poseidon. They're all Fraser nearly naked, which suits me just fine. But I wonder where these came from and what the point was (other than to make women, and surely some men, salivate uncontrollably)?


You may not know but Fraser is also an accomplished amateur photographer, with a website at

http://www.brendanfraser.com/. Check it out, it's pretty damn cool. All in all he sounds like a down to earth, versatile, well-rounded gentleman.

Who looks equally good in a Tux or a G-String.

What is Hot? A Photo-Essay

What. Is. Hot?

A question with many answers, none of them wrong. One could say Hot is as Hot does. But not for everyone. Sometimes Hot is as Hot looks. Sometimes Hot is a total package. The bottom line is this: Hot is as Hot is perceived. By the Hot-ician.

Ok, I'm losing myself here. Focus, focus.

Inspired by a former post of SUV Mama's, I decided to compose a photo tribute to Hotness, from my own perspective, with commentary. Here goes:

------------------------------------------------------------

Hey, I like to look at a pretty face as much as the next gal...So right up there on my hotness list are two "givens:"

Johnny Depp - I believe this is circa "21 Jump Street" or a bit later, although it doesn't really matter what era you reference, this guy does it for me...and millions of women the world over. Heck, my 15 year old cousin has posters of him on her wall! A man whose hotness transcends age (and, I suspect, gender:)

And you can't say "hot" without good 'ol Brad Pitt. Pretty Boy Extraordinaire. I love him in Meet Joe Black - also love the movie although many don't think of the movie as one of his outstanding pics. Boyish, seemingly vulnerable, and assumably unaware of the magnitude of his sex appeal (though I secretly doubt this), he is the subject of many a woman's fantasy, I am sure.

We will now take a detour from mega-mass-marketed hotness.

For the transitional male hottie, I've chosen Michael Buble. He's got a kind of James Dean/Frank Sinatra thing going on. Again, boyish, but with a voice that's an audio orgasm. Have you heard this man sing? Dark chocolate for the ears....mmmmm.

On to even less....conventional...appeal. Here's a man that not everyone is familiar with. When I confessed to my husband that I find this guy attractive, he just gave me a blank stare. "Why?" he asked. "He's old, skinny, and smokes like a chimney!"

Hey, I didn't say I wanted to SLEEP with the guy. I just find him attractive! This, folks, is Anthony Bourdain. Star of the Travel Channel show, No Reservations. He's a former chef of some fancy restaurant turned-author turned-TV star.

What's sexy about him? He can cook. He can write. He has a wicked sarcastic wit and a sharp tongue. He's real - no BS. On top of it all, he's humble. Self-effacing even. Combine that with decent looks and for me, you have a cocktail for sexy.

You've heard the way to a woman's heart is through her brain? So true. How else can you explain all the stunning women out there running around with average or less-than-average looking men?

Which brings me to the final man on this post....A man who manages to combine many of the factors of the above men into one very nice package (pardon the euphemism). He's the star of the TV show Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel. Here's Mike Rowe, folks:

Here's a man about as humble as they come, or at least he pulls off sincere humility better than Brad Pitt. He's got a rapier witt (or is that "rapist wit"? - Dumb and Dumber anyone?).

He's got a twisted and naughty sense of humor. He has a very manly physique, untainted by the oh-so-popular metrosexuality trend. His voice is like buttah. And he ain't afraid to get dirty. There's something very viscerally attractive to me about a man with all his qualities who manages to maintain that aura of genuineness and accessibility.

Sure, you could say it's probably all a facade. But I'm willing to buy what this guy is selling.

And tip generously.

This is not the end, folks. There is one more man on this list. He's the culmination of all these qualities bundled into one smokin'-hot package. Who can this man be, you may ask? You'll have to wait. This man deserves a whole post all to himself. Is it worth it? Oh, yeaah....

Any guesses in the meantime?

My Favorite Fool

April Fool, Sis!!! You probably thought I didn't remember you in my post below. Ha! Joke's on you....you get a post all your own. xxxxoooo

My sister and I are two years apart; I the older. She's a chiropractor now, so I'll refer to her as "Doc." Today is her 33rd birthday. For exactly a month out of each year, I am (in number) three years older than her. I turned 35 at the end of February.

When we were very young, I was certain that my life would have been much better had I been an only child. Here I was, willful and strong-minded, the ruler of my own personal world, and suddenly I was being followed around by a cuter, smaller, less advanced little person who I was expected to treat kindly at all times. This seriously cramped my style. I mostly tried to ignore her, which didn't work out so well. As we grew a little older, I saw the brighter side of the situation. I could boss her around!! This kid would do whatever I said! Sweet.

And did I take advantage of that fact? Did I ever! I was forever having her fetch things for me, ask mom or dad for stuff for me, making her play my games at my discretion. Once I remember as we were bathing together that there was suddenly a brown "floatie" in the bathtub. She knew it wasn't hers; I knew it was mine. And yet I talked her into picking it up and putting it in the toilet for me. I was so naughty.

There was also the advantage of having a handy-dandy full-time scapegoat. Doc got blamed for waaay more stuff than she ever did. Once we were playing and I made her so mad that she said "God Dammit" (at the age of about 6), and I went screaming to mom even as she clamped her hands over her mouth and her big blue eyes filled with tears as she begged me not to tell. I was merciless.

When I was 7 we moved into our new house that my parents had built (really built, not contracted). It had a walk-out basement, a full concrete block wall across the back lower level of the house. The artist in me saw that as a huge blank canvas. One day I found a rust-colored grease pencil leftover from Halloween. I stood and stared at that back wall and really, REALLY wanted to write my name on it. But I knew I'd get in big-time trouble. So I wrote my sister's name, in her handwriting, at her level. Just to seal the deal, I wrote my own name in her handwriting, misspelled with a letter backward. Oh yeah, it looked gooood. And my itch was scratched. When she got blamed, I felt pretty bad....but not bad enough to stick up for her. She took that one for the team too. God love her!

There were many times when we got along fine. We played more barbie games than I can possibly recall. Usually they ended up with the barbies naked or fighting or both, but a good time was had by all. I remember hiding underneath our beds and whispering for what seemed like hours, playing "spy" in our rural neighborhood, digging tunnels in the snow, playing at the creek, and torturing our 2 cats by dressing them up in our doll clothes.

We had to "share" the two other girls in our neighborhood as friends since they were the only other girls we could play with. I remember when we would all ride together in the back of the neighbor lady's stationwagon on the way home from catechism and BEG her to hit the bumps really hard so we would go airborne! We would get each other giggling so hard that we simply couldn't stop. Doc and I excelled at the giggling thing, which was great for long car rides but not so good for church...

As we hit puberty, Doc and I sort of both realized that we could put aside our differences and make the best of it. As we went through high school we began to share our circles of friends, and were really starting to have a blast together as I became a senior then went off to college. She was the only child standing between my folks and an empty nest, so she got a bit more lenient treatment...OK, she got away with WAAAY more stuff than I did, but as I look back I'd have to say she earned it for all the crap I put her through when she was too young to fend for herself!

Doc had a harder time academically with high school than I did, which is not to say she did poorly. Not at all. She just had to work harder at it than I ever did. In the end it served her well. She did great at college (I partied my way through the first 2 years and ended up having to go 5 total to get my BSN). She loved being a student, getting her dietetics degree first, then going on to nursing school, and finally going back to school with her husband and graduating a year ago as a Doctor of Chiropractic. I couldn't have been more proud!! I tear up just thinking about it. Now they have their own practice together, and are making it work for them. We live about 2 hours apart, but still try to talk on the phone when we can. She's busy, I'm busy, but there is that eternal link we share that I cherish so very much.

We have evolved over the years from sibling rivals to sisters to best friends. Who among us can truly say, without reservation, that her sister is her best friend? I am so blessed!! You can't pick your relatives, but you can pick your friends...I picked my relative as my friend too. It's funny, we look sort of alike (except she's thin and I got the big boobs), but if we are both in a room it is so obvious we are sisters; we have almost exactly the same mannerisms: we speak the same, laugh the same, have the same sense of humor, and we both pick at our nails when our hands are idle. It's as close to having a twin as I will ever come...having a person so very like me in this world is a rare blessing indeed.

I love you Dork. Happy Birthday!! ("Normal...") =p