“I REMEMBER THAT OUTFIT!”

During the holidays, my mother and my sister both came into town at the same time, as I mentioned in a previous post. One of the things we did during their visit, was to go over a bunch of slides from our childhood that we recently obtained. These were, among various outings, family parties, graduations, confirmations and a family vacation with our grandparents to Israel.

We thought this would be a pretty boring exercise, looking through hundreds of slides, just to pick out the few we wanted to save and turn into pictures, but let me tell you…

WE HAD SO MUCH FUN!!!

Seeing family members who were not with us anymore, especially my dad, was really great. But the most fun was looking at what we were wearing! (I know, such a “girl” thing to say, but so true!) We’d click on a new slide, and all four of us at the same time would yell, “I REMEMBER THAT OUTFIT!” The funny thing was, sometimes we’d all be yelling about the same outfit, and sometimes we’d all be yelling about the outfit each one of us was wearing!

Now, because were were all women, we would also yell together when a distant cousin would come up on the screen, wearing something hideous. “EWWWWWWWW!!!!!!”

Then there was the confirmation where there were no pictures of me or my friend, Brenda. Why? Because we were bored, so we went upstairs in this house/banquet hall that my parents rented for the party, and played pool. But when we came down, it turned out everyone was already gone! Apparently, my mom thought my dad’s girlfriend (yes, they were already divorced!) was taking us home, and vice versa. This was years before cell phones were invented, and there was even a lock on the rotary (yes, rotary) phone, so we were really stranded! Finally, some guy in the kitchen took pity on us and found a phone for us to use so we could call home. Just one of the many stories that came up while we were perusing our childhoods!

So if you get the chance to clean out some old photos or slides or movies, grab your sisters or brothers or anyone who will make fun of each other with you, and have a great time!

Karen

Friday Fun! Snow Day #2!

I can't believe we had another snow day today. No school for the kids. I'm thinking they just didn't want the expense of heating up the schools for one day in subzero weather. They may want to just keep us off the roads and keep the kids out of the cold. Well, my kids can hardly get enough of the sledding and snowball fights. They have, however taken sledding to an entirely new level at the B house. You see, if you are standing at the back windows of the house, you can look out over the back yard. Our house sits at the top of a hill. The yard has a flat place up top where the playset is, and then begins sloping downward. So I was looking out the window and this is what I saw:

Z1 was carrying his red toboggan sled up to the playset. He climbed into the fort with it and placed it at the top of the slide. Before I could even think about getting outside to him, he grabs the top bar that sits across the slide opening, flings all of his nearly sixty pounds into the sled and goes SAILING down the slide, catches about 2 seconds of air and sleds right down to the bottom of the hill.

Ingenious. This is one way to catch some serious speed to make it all the way down the hill! And it's one of those moments where I say,"Go ahead son. Mommy loves it." I spend so much time saying "No" and doing what is "good for them" that I couldn't bring myself to take this away. Let's just hope it does not result in a trip to the Urgent Care. Especially now that Z2 is following right behind.

Yours, watching in wonderment,

Melissa

More Resolutions- And a SNOW DAY!

Okay. I'll be honest. I cannot even begin to top Karen's post from yesterday. I'd love to make one of those resolutions and keep them. But what was that I was saying about setting realistic expectations for myself? Riiiiiiiiight. SO here I sit, thinking about resolution #2.

2.) I WILL lose that last ten pounds.

I'm not going to stress over it. I'm just going to get back to working out regularly. December- just once. December was so unkind to my waistline. Which means I'll need to lose that ten plus the five from December. And I'm not going to get all freaky and count every calorie . . I'm just going to be conscious of carb intake and up my veggie intake. And probably cut out. . . wait for it. . . major nemesis. . . Pepsi. Seriously. I mean, did you expect me to give up my skinny vanilla latte? I'm not THAT desperate. YET.

Of course, does any of this count when we have a snow day? Mmmmm. . . I dunno. At least I did NOT do any baking today. And I DID skip the hot chocolate when we came in. If I could just up my water intake, I might get on a roll, instead of eating every roll in sight (with butter, please), like I did in December.

Did I mention December was unkind to me?

Yours, dealing with December indulgences head-on,

Melissa

THE RESOLUTIONS I REALLY WANT TO MAKE … AND KEEP!

We’ve all heard, and I’ve even written, about making New Year’s Resolutions that are small changes, so we don’t give up after a week or a month. But what are the ones that we REALLY wish we could make? And KEEP? That will somehow, magically work? Here are mine:

1. Lose my remaining 18 pounds by the end of the month. And still eat everything I want to eat. In abundance.
   
2. Become the perfect mom, never yelling at my kids, which will turn the boys into the perfect children, always doing what I say the first time, so I don’t have to yell, and so on, and so on, and so on.
   
3. I haven’t printed out any pictures since the first day of kindergarten, and the boys are now in 3rd grade. I’d like to get all those done by the end of this week.
   
4. Have our new website up by tomorrow.
   
5. Have my entire house cleaned and organized by the day after tomorrow.
   
6. Keep it that way all year.
   
7. Learn to salsa dance next weekend.
   
8. Enter the 2010 Olympics as a figure skater. (Does it matter that I can’t stand up on ice skates?)
   
9. Have Karmel Publishing make our first million by April. (After all, we’ll have our new website up by tomorrow, right?)
   
10. Never lose my temper, ever, all year long. (BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!)
    

So, what do you think? Can I do it?

Karen

It 's a Whole, New, Simplifying Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! Time to pony up those New Year Resolutions. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I dread it. This year, I am taking it all in stride. I always feel the urge "to get it together" at the beginning of the year. This can be good, and incredibly overwhelming. To combat this, I offer you my first New Year's Resolution:

1.) I will hereby set reasonable expectations for myself.

I don't know about you, but I tend to be harder on myself that anyone else. I always set the bar way, way, way high. Now there is nothing wrong with dreaming dreams and setting goals and expectations for myself. But let's face it- no matter how much weight I lose (BTW- WAY TO GO KAREN!!!!), how much I work out or what kind of clothes I buy, I am not going to look like Demi Moore. That, my dear readers, would be a very unreasonable expectation for myself. So maybe I will set an expectation of losing that ten pounds the doctor is on me to lose. Or conquering my fear of any body of water over four feet deep. Or getting my pictures from 2006-2009 printed. (I did, last week, print 2005. Yay for me! One resolution down!) But in trying to make things simpler, I'm going to have to let go of my unachievable standards and be okay with the fact that I will never look like Demi Moore. I will never be Martha Stewart (which I think I'm okay with) or probably have a closet like Hedi Klum (after all, who can afford all of those expensive clothes?) But I can lose the last ten pounds, I can organize a little at the time, and I can shop with fashionable ideas in mind. THOSE are reasonable expectations.

Yours, wondering what YOUR reasonable expectations are (feel free to post them!),

Melissa

LIFE RETURNS TO NORMAL!

FINALLY! The kids are back in school and the husband is back at work and I can get back to my normal routine. I don’t know why Winter break seems so much longer than Summer break. I guess just because there are really no pressures during the summer. I know it’s going to be a long, lazy 3 months, and I prepare for it. I plan time to work and to exercise and to get everything done. But winter break is full of holidays and errands and family and eating and so on and so on! It seems like there’s not a minute to spare, yet nothing gets done! So after 2 weeks, I’m exhausted!

But, as I said in my last post, no worries! It’s all worth it, knowing my kids had a great Christmas and a great winter break.

So now, the catch-up begins. And so do the New Years Resolutions. I’m really not one to make these grand gestures to make drastic changes to my life, which will probably last one week, at the most. Rather, I think New Years Resolutions are about making small, yet significant changes, to make me a better person. (I tried explaining this to my 8 year olds. One said that he wants to become a better video game player and the other said he will remember to feed the dog more, which, by the way, hasn’t happened yet. We’ll work on this some more!)

So here they are: My first resolution is a continuation of last year’s. In 2009, I began working out and eating healthier, and so far I’ve lost 34 pounds. I plan on working harder at this (it’s the snacking that gets me!), and continuing to work towards my 50 pound goal. Also, as a side note, I’d like more of this to rub off on my husband! (The kids I can control to some degree, but not DH!)

My next resolution is to be more organized in my business and my life. (I know, I write books about organizing information. I should be more organized myself, but for some reason it’s just easier for me to tell others how to do it than to do it myself!) Again, nothing huge here, just small changes, one at a time. I’ve already started using Google Calendar, which syncs with my phone, so I always have my schedule with me. See, small changes!

That’s it! Just two New Year’s Resolutions for me! Wish me luck!

Karen

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

ALMOST time to relax. All we need to do now is take down the holiday decorations, then all reminders of this past month will be virtually erased.

HA! Who am I kidding? As much as I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the holidays, I also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE when they are over! Am I the only one? I feel like I have accomplished absolutely nothing of my REAL life over the past month. (I’m surprised I even got laundry done, but that was purely out of necessity and the constant nagging of naked children!)

WHAT HAPPENED TO DECEMBER???

Melissa and I had all those lofty goals to be finished by the end of the year. HA! I was going to clean out my office and have the kids clean out the basement while they were on winter break. HA! HA! I HAD PLANS, DARN IT!!!

Okay, I’m composed now… somewhat. I just need to remember that the kids had a great winter break, Christmas was awesome for them, we all had a wonderful visit with their Grandma and Aunt from out-of-town (okay, actually I did, as they are the kind of people who like adult time more than kid time!), we all stuffed ourselves silly (back on the healthy bandwagon for me!), and all in all…

LIFE IS GRAND!!!

So who cares if they house got cleaned, or the bills got paid, or our new book got completed? December is all about family and friends and good times, and if everything else got pushed to the back burner, no worries. In 3 more days, life returns to normal, and things have a way of catching up and getting done in their own time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM KAREN AND MELISSA AND KARMEL PUBLISHING!