Girlfriends...

I am so thankful for my girlfriends. Near and far, you are all dear to me and do great things for my health, happiness and overall wellbeing. Thank you.

This article sent to me by one of my fabulous neighbors goes right along with the Oprah show I watched today (from yesterday) about happiness. Watch it if you have it recorded...good stuff.

"I just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The last lecture was on the mind-body connection - the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.

Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time" helps us to create more serotonin - a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf?
Yes. But their feelings? Rarely.

Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There's a tendency to think that when we are "exercising" we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged—not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!

So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky. Sooooo let's toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it's very good for our health."

Lesson learned.

Reminder...

When one lives in Michigan and it is the end of January, one must always wear snow boots or at least have them in your car. Flats without socks are not the best choice. You never know when you will slide around in the temporary culdesac at the end of the street and jump a snow bank in your little sedan. It is very possible that it will be necessary to wade knee high in snow in an attempt to push said car out. That will likely not work. Hopefully, there will be a Byron Center Gaines Utility truck nearby with a nice worker who happens to have a shovel to help dig the car out.

Also, hopefully if you have a toddler in the car, he/she will behave like an angel even though it is 1/2 hour passed his/her nap time and he/she is suffering from a horrible cold with a nose running like a faucet. In my case, Connor earned the "choo choo" we picked up today at Target.

Next time I'm at Target, I might pick up an extra pair of boots on clearance just to leave in the car. Oh, and you should probably take a coat too....a sweater cardigan isn't really sufficient. :) I know that the fact that it is 23º and snowing should have made me grab a jacket, but I've gotten lazy. I'd rather just suck it up for the 30 seconds between the car and the store than deal with dressing and undressing to prevent getting crazy hot and having a cart full of snow clothes. If I am going to continue to be this lazy, I guess I should put a coat in the car too.

Don't worry, Connor was all bundled up. The same laziness does not apply to him. He did not have snow boots on, but regular shoes, thick socks, a long sleeve shirt, fleece 1/2 zip pullover, snow jacket and lined pants. And he was not asked to help push the car out of the snow. :)

Translating Connor.

So I am going to write down a few I can remember right now, but I will also add to this later as he says them or as I think of his cute little sayings (that maybe only we can understand).

• "Bless You" = Thank You or it is used correctly after
• "chooey" = a sneeze
• "No Bless You" = no thank you. Maybe my favorite.
• "Pickle Boomie" = Despicable Me
• "kitty boomies" = Garfield movie, "Tail of Two Kitties"...there is a scene where Garfield passes gas. We call this "boomies" as Brian doesn't like to word "poot" and I dislike "fart".
• "Pole Fress" = Polar Express

Priorities, Mom...

I know I owe lots of pictures and retro posts, but I wanted to write this down before I forgot.

Yesterday, Connor and I were out in the snow. I shoveled about 2/3 the driveway and then it was time for sledding! We had so much fun!! Connor was disappointed that the snow is all powdery, so we couldn't make a snowman...or even snowballs for that matter, but he LOVED the sledding. He went down by himself and with me. We will likely venture to bigger hills next time.

Anyway, I shoveled the driveway just a little bit more after our sledding and Connor approached me with a request: "Mom, gloves off, peas...[I need to] pick my nose". I just died laughing. I removed his mittens and he immediately started digging around up there! I'd told him it was almost time to go inside, so after picking his nose, he walked straight to the garage and let himself inside. Needless to say, I stopped shoveling. I guess sometimes, getting a "boogie" out is more important than warm hands.

These pictures are NOT from yesterday , but a couple of days ago when I took Connor for a walk in the sled (taken with my phone). Poor kid has a rough life....he had a pillow and insisted on being covered up. When the sun got in his eyes, he simply covered his head with the towell. He looks a bit like a mummy to me. :) He had a more delightful look on his face yesterday!

On another note, we are on day 5 (sorta) of potty training. He has had several really good days. He had school on Wednesday and although they have told me that they are happy to work with them potty training, I think we'll wait until week 2 or 3 before I send him with only big boy underwear (and several sets of clothes). He has yet to poop in the potty, but I've been bribing him with a "present" and 5 M&Ms if he goes in the potty. Maybe today is the day. I will say, that he has the cutest little diaper-less butt. His clothes just look so different! Continue to wish us potty training luck!!

Congratulations, Auburn.

Auburn just won the BCS National Championship against the Oregon Ducks (and their bright yellow/green duck feet!)

I was going to post this as as "status" on Facebook, but decided against it. A personal blog is probably a better place to avoid a lot of backlash. :)

"People outside the SEC don't hate the conference because the teams win so frequently, but because of SEC fan's superiority complex and a lack of humility. Don't get me wrong, I'm still proud of where I'm from. I'd be even more proud of fewer player suspensions, penalties, and thug-like behavior. Go DAWGS!"

I felt the need to write it because of so many SEC related status messages on Facebook this morning. I, too am proud that the University of Georgia is part of a conference that has won 5 National Championships in a row. I understand that a strong conference strengthens UGA's recruiting, schedule, etc., but I've never been able to jump on the whole conference bandwagon. I spend a lot of the season hoping the Dawgs stomp all over other SEC teams and I just can't shake that when the bowl games start. I still hate most shades of orange (Florida, Tennessee & Auburn) and that is because my blood bleeds red and black through and through.

Good job to Oregon for a great game (even though I'm not going to pretend that I stayed up to watch it...or even watched most of it).

I still wish Cam Newton wasn't such a thug and Fairley is just horrible.... because of those two players, I wish Oregon had won.

The status message that made me laugh most this morning regarding the game last night was from Luke Hagedorn. "Congrats to Auburn for winning the 2011 title. And congrats in advance to Oregon for winning it retroactively in 2013. — Bill Simmons"

If you are an SEC fan with a ton of respect for other teams and conferences....don't take this personally....it is not geared toward you.

—————

I just read my last post....from November and it appears that I lied....sorry. Retro posts coming soon. My new computer will be here tomorrow!!!

Connor's first movie: Tangled!

We started out this New Year with a new experience for Connor. On January 1, we took him to see his first movie: Disney's Tangled. Our original idea was to wait until June when Cars 2 comes out, for that to be his first in-theater movie, but I'm glad we didn't wait. I think we all had a great time.
In honor of his first movie, we even bought the special Tangled popcorn bucket. It comes with free refills all the time until April 11th, so we'll likely be going to more movies in the near future. Connor looked so small and cute in his big movie chair, with a giant bucket of popcorn in his lap and a 100% Juice Capri Sun to quench his thirst. He was nestled in right between me and Brian and he kept telling us, "shhh quiet. Be still, no whining and no crying." I wonder where he heard that before the movie??? :)He was a champ through the whole movie. His only loud outburst was at the very beginning before the movie even started during the Disney intro. You may not have ever noticed, but in the theater version there is a tiny train in the background....(perhaps it is the monorail from the park???). Of course Connor saw it immediately and shouted, "Choo Choo....here it comes!" Although slightly disruptive, it was adorable. The theater was full of children and it was a blast!