T-minus 1 day before the Wolverine movie comes out. I'm sure it will be packed. If I could clone myself 250 times, I would take myselves to that movie and fill up the theater with myselves for 2 hours of quality alone time with a 90-foot-tall dirty mutton-chopped mutant Hugh Jackman.

 

I'm over the pneumonia. I'm still feeling a little fatigued but it's nothing I can't handle. I've put off doing any running--or any real kind of exercise--until at least next week. The last thing I want is to get sick again just in time for May, which is otherwise known as the busiest month of the year. I might need to buy Yellow Jackets in bulk just to get through the next 4 weeks.

 

My one idea for Merrick's upcoming 1st birthday party is to have a piddly little cookout and a piddly little cake one afternoon. Yea! Nobody even ask about my plans for Cheyenne's birthday. I got nothin.

Cheyenne and I are going to attempt a MS Walk Saturday at the Oklahoma City Zoo. She needs her service hours for NJHS; plus it's catered by Starbucks and Krispy Kreme. I can't wait to go; Merrick has never been to the Zoo, and this zoo? Is awesome. I think it's, like, the #3 Family Zoo in the United States. Or at least it was 3 years ago. Plus, you know, multiple sclerosis is cool too. I mean, not cool, but...

 

Mia has a t-ball game tonight; so far in the season every other one has been cancelled or rescheduled, so this will be her first game. I think she'll get excited only when she puts on her uniform and actually walks out on the field. Until then, I don't know that she believes it's really going to happen.

 

I'm getting the kids on WIC. At first I wasn't sure if we would qualify; I figured I'd give it a shot but I wasn't hopeful. The health department lady approved us so fast it wasn't even funny. Yippee! We're poor! Free milk and peanut butter for everyone! Seriously, though? Every little bit helps. We've also trimmed our Direct TV package, and boy, is that ever depressing. Can't watch Animal Planet, Discovery Health, TLC or Comedy Central. The package we switched to says we have over 50 channels; what we didn't realize is that 20 of them are infomercial channels. Or QVC. Or Gemstone channels. It's crap, I tell you. Crap. But I guess if I'm actually upset about it, then I was watching too much TV to begin with. So there you go.

 

HMMM, what else, what else is going on around here? Oh yeah. I HAVE PNEMONIA. It hit me pretty hard Tuesday morning; I had a fever and aches and pains and chills and a headache--which all would have been bearable--except for the horrible stabbing pain I felt in my right lung everytime I took a breath. That night it hurt so bad that I couldn't even move with out crying out. I've never known such pain. It even trumphed childbirth. I gave it a 10. A screaming, frowny face. So the next morning I hauled my ass to the doctor; one swab up my nose and 2 chest X-rays later, they had my diagnosis. I was surprised; I didn't know you could get pnemonia all the sudden. Turns out, you can't. The doctor said I've probably had it for about 3 weeks.

 

 Anyway. I'm sick, but I'm actually feeling a lot better today than I did the past 2 days. I'm all jacked up on antibiotics and motrin 800, but it's a good feeling.

 

After my appointment, I immediately scheduled a check-up for Merrick, who has been snotty and coughy for the past few weeks. Caleb is taking him right now; I feel pretty sure he's fine, and that he's just got allergies, or at the very worse, a bad cold...but we'll see. I'm waiting for one of the other kids to drop out next.

 

Caleb has been wonderful. He took off from work and he's handled everything. I feel like I've abandoned him--I've never been this sick before, and he knew it. And he really stepped up and played Mr. Mom and Mr. Dad and Mr. Nurse. I  knew he'd be able to, and I knew he'd probably be better at it than I normally am. And he was...but by the end of the day even he was losing his patience with the kids. And that was refreshing. I'm sorry, Caleb, but it was. Thank you for taking care of me. 

I thought I'd get smart yesterday and run the course in the opposite direction. Surely if I took on those mini-hills when I was fresh and ready to go I'd have a better time. Well, my time got better but I almost had a heart attack; I don't know why I never realized this, but the hills are way higher and tougher at the normal beginning of the trail, and it almost killed me going over them. Today I'm actually hurting. Which is probably a good thing.

 

I hate to make this entire page about running so I'll stop.

 

Last night we got a phone call from who I can only assume is the asswipe that broke Caleb's little sister's heart. He's the only person I know that just loves to drunk-dial as much as he does. And I know that some people in the family are all about forgiveness and moving on, and I appreciate that, I do. But when you call my house at 2:00 a.m. and wake up my damn baby, I'll fucking hunt you down and cut you.

 

Anyways, I answered the phone with my usual calm gentile voice (HIM: "Can I speak to (hic!) Caleb?" ME: "NOOO. Who the fuck is this? Hello? Hello?" End conversation.) Then I stayed awake for 3 hours seething. If he really wanted to talk to my husband, for whatever reason, he should have manned-up and called during the day. This drunk-dialing is horse shit. And you know what? If Caleb doesn't want to talk to him ever again, that's just a price he pays for being an asshole. It's something he should've thought of before, back when he was 27 and started dating his best friend's little sister, who wasn't even out of high school yet, before he moved that poor girl hours away from family and friends and then dumped her brutally and kicked her out with nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Talk about burning bridges.

 

There is a happy ending to this: Joy is doing fantastic. She's absolutely thriving despite everything she's been through...well, in the last several years. I know I can brag publically now: the article is called "In nationwide competition APS names UAHuntsville student 2009 undergraduate superstar", but in reality it should have been titled "The Awesomeness of Joy". We're all so, so, so proud of her. READ IT HERE: http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=1317 

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG! MONEY! And that's all I'll say about that.

 

Onto more better things. I wanted to start a little running journal here on my page. And so I will. I am trying to run a mile and a half 3 times a week. We've been walking over to the abandoned golf-course and running along that torturous winding path, with all the mini-hills that one would think wouldn't be such a big deal--BUT THEY ARE. It's those little hills that kill me. I'm nowhere near keeping up with my husband and his neighbor/friend/running parter, Billy, who encouraged me last week by saying something like, "Well, we might be running faster but we also haven't given birth to 3 kids." And I felt good for about 2 seconds, until I reminded myself that lots of mommies run marathons and take aerobics classes and weight-train and pilates and yoga and treadmill and all kinds of stuff, and that surely I should be able to run a measly mile in well under 10 minutes. But I'm getting better. I will go ahead and post my times from the beginning. Please note that in the beginning, we hadn't measured out the exact distance; as it turns out, we weren't running a full mile and a half. So we upped it, and now my time has gone up as well...but I'm getting a handle on it again. My goal? To make that front nine my bitch in no more than 11 minutes and 30 seconds, by, say....the end of the summer? We'll see. I may have to reevaluate that goal.

 

The new colors? Yeah, I got bored with the orange--for now. Chances are, I'll probably switch back in a week.

 

Good news around here? We're going ta Florida! Endish of June. June--that's right. The Month of Toni. What.

God Bless Caleb's Dad and his commercial airline pilot days. Hopefully we'll be able to get a pretty good deal on some stand-by tickets. I could just pee my pants with excitement thinking about the beach and the smell of saltwater and fish and sunscreen...and the humidity and the jellyfish and the million-and-one people we'll have to visit with while we're down there. I love it all, truly--I do so love it all.

 

More good news? Caleb's got a business plan that's beyond brilliant. I can't go into too much detail 1) because I don't want to jinx it and 2) because I don't fully understand it, but let's just say I'm proud of my husband and his ambition and his financial smarts. I know that if anyone can make it work, Caleb can. My husband fucking rocks, and if you don't know, you better ask somebody. (First, imagine me being way cool. Then, imagine me saying that in a very non-white-girl kind-of way.)

 

Really cool but old news? Caleb and his neighbor/friend/running parter found a ton of morel mushrooms in the woods. They found tons. Tons, I tell you. And we ate them--all--within one night. I'm to understand that if a person were to buy them, they would be very very expensive. And I know why--they were oh-so-delicious.

 

Mia has yet to have a t-ball game. We keep getting rained or winded out.

Merrick looks abused. He's always ramming his head into something hard. He walks--if not runs--everywhere he goes, just like a real person. I. Cannot. Keep up.

Cheyenne is Cheyenne--sulky and anti-social, pretty much all the time. Apparently she's very excited about our trip to Florida this summer, which is weird since she claims to HATE THE SUN AND ALL IT SHINES UPON.

 

A funny thing? When Mia plays with her dollhouse she goes all Extreme MakeOver Home Edition: "GOOD MORNING DOLLHOUSE FAMILY! ARE YOU READY TO GO TO DISNEY WORLD?"  And then the wooden-yarn thing that is Ty Pennington proceeds to "wreck" the dollhouse and completely rebuild it, and when the family comes back they're all "Oh, my goodness, this is amazing, thank you, Ty!" And so on and so forth.

 

Love it.

Damn my husband and his ridiculous ability to lose weight. Already he's 8 lbs down and I'm still double-stuffed. I've even gained 2 pounds--what the hell? I hate him.

 

Not really, though. He's looking good (not that he ever looked bad) and feelin' superfly and I'm proud of him.

 

Trying to plan a Florida trip this summer is turning out to be a big fat pain in my big fat ass. Everyone wants a piece of us. We're like rockstars, but without the money.

 

Mia's got her first T-ball game tonight. Cheyenne straightened her hair this morning and she looked so pretty I almost cried. Merrick hit the tile face first and had a bloody nose for an hour. Caleb has a bunch of appointments today and I actually had time to get a shower and put on makeup--I thought with my public appearance at the ballpark this evening and all, you know...

 

That's it.

 

...I hate my husband and his long-ass legs. He is smoking me at running and it's just not fair. He's so gazelle-like and I'm so...not gazelle-like. I'm more like a gimp...um, turkey. And damn him for coming back from the trail looking like a delicate flower. Everytime I run, whether it be for 5 minutes or 1 hour, I look like holy hell. My face is bright red--and I do mean bright red--and I'm sweating like an I-don't-even-know-what. I scare my own children.

 

...the wind is blowing so hard that even the dogs are freaked out. Normally they enjoy a blustery day, but I can't even get them to go outside. I'm thinking of picking Cheyenne up at the bus stop because she just might go flying if she tries to walk down the street.

 

...Mia is trying to play my head off. My favorite game? Tinkerbell vs. Darth Vader. (Thanks for the extra light saber, Wyatt and Joey.) Why do I always have to be Vader? She even tells me what to say in the midst of battle: "You underestimate my powers. Surrender to the dark side. Use the force." My least favorite game? Barrell of Monkeys. Has anyone ever tried to really play that? Do you understand how hard it truly is?

 

...Merrick thinks he can take off walking whenever he wants and wherever he wants. He's getting sturdier and faster and it's absolutely unnerving. I'm spending so much time chasing after him and making sure he doesn't crack his skull on the tile that I'm not getting anything else done. Babies are just not meant to walk until they're at least a year old. I can only put up with one infant skull surgery per lifetime.

 

...Caleb promised to take me to see the X-Men Origins movie when it comes out (legally and in theaters, people) in May. I think he was inspired by the movie we watched last night ("Fireproof") and since he knows how much I just love me some Wolverine, he decided to sacrifice his precious time just so I could spend 90 minutes in dirty-mutant-Hugh Jackman heaven.

 

On a side note: Fireproof? Was pretty good. The get-right-with-God thing got a little old at times, but I could stomach it since I could relate to the rest of the story line eerily well, and I'm obviously not talking about pulling small children out of burning buildings.

 

I'm totally referring to the time I dragged a wrecked car off a train track mere seconds before being smashed to death by an oncoming freight train.

 

Oh, and the part about being so angry and hateful towards a person you're supposed to love forever.

 

I was a little disappointed with one thing: The movie focused on the husband, which is all fine and dandy and whatnot because guys need all the help they can get when it comes to loving and caring for their PMS-y wives (and let's face it, we ladies do have our bitchy days...or weeks...or in some cases--and I'm not naming names--ME, TONI!--bitchy years.) We know what a jerk the husband was and how he mended his ways and how his wife finally forgave him, but I would have loved some tips on how to respect and support a man even when he's stuck in perpetual asshole mode, without turning into an ice queen myself. But then again, maybe that was where the whole prayer part came into play.

 

Boy, that turned out to be more than a side note.

 

...and finally, today, I'm looking foward to tomorrow and the weekend and some nice weather and some t-ball and some more running. I want to shave 2 whole minutes off my trail time and so help me God I'm going to do it. My reward? Personal satisfaction, gloating rights, and maybe--just maybe...a yellow iPod? I'm motivated. Maybe I could wear a kite and run in the direction of the wind...