Willpower, Girl Scout Cookies and Exercise

Willpower? What willpower? So I'm the cookie mom for our Girl Scout troop and to make life easier on myself, and because I am truly mathematically challenged, I went ahead and ordered cookies for our family based on how many boxes the troop needed to make up a complete case. (I hate extras and since my husband is working several states away, I can't make him take extra boxes into the office to sell so the troop doesn't get stuck with them like I did last year.) But do you think that I even once considered the fact that I would end up with a stinkin' boatload of cookies I can't keep my lips off of? Oh no. That never crossed my mind. Nevermind that I've been working really hard on my weight for over a year now and have been at the same (too high) plateau for 6 months now. No, making the cases complete is far more important than my lack of willpower or my waistline or even my sense of satisfaction with myself (plowing through a box at a time does not help me feel good--full, yes; good, no).

My garage is back to normal since I finally got everyone to pick up their cookies and I'm only left with the towering stack that belongs to my family. Funny how many cookies are left. It's been this way for a few days now and I was being pretty good about the temptation. I don't even think about the cookies before everyone has picked them up because I'm too afraid to take a box and mess up my count (one family thinks my count was off this year but that's another story--funny how everyone else got exactly the correct number of cookies). But now that it's just our cookies, well it's gotten harder. And two nights ago I gave in. I absolutely inhaled an entire box of Peanut Butter Patties (Tag-Alongs to those of you using the other GS bakery). I ate those suckers so fast I think the square footage of the house decreased from the suction. I ate like I thought someone was likely to come along and take them away from me. I ate them at 10 o'clock at night so my kids wouldn't see me being a complete glutton. Ask me how proud of myself I am.

Now ask me how guilty I felt. (Can Catholic guilt rub off? I think I've gained a good measure of it just by sending the kids to Catholic school.) I actually hauled my sorry butt out into practically knee deep slush and freezing water to run 6 miles in an effort to reverse the GS dimples already forming on my butt and thighs. Somehow I don't think it worked, which means I got soaked and nasty for nothing. Was that box of cookies worth an hour's unpleasant run? Well, they were pretty tasty but I'm not sure anything is worth the dead white, shriveled, wet feet I sported after finishing. And until my shoes dry out (they are seriously still wet more than 24 hours later), I guess I'd better stay away from the Thin Mints!

Review: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

For a book centered blog, I do seem to write astonishingly few book related posts here, don't I? Looking at the stack of books I still need to review here, it is seemingly insurmountable (or at least not do-able in a reasonable amount of time). Being backed up by 26 books is attributable to many things, not the least of which is that Carson McCullers' book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is at the top of the wobbling unreviewed mountain. Looking at it and knowing that I have a write coherent review of it has had me stumped so I've decided just to write whatever comes to mind and get over the mental block this book is causing. So here goes:

I know this book is considered a modern classic. Even Oprah has endorsed it. I completely and totally loathed it. It was beyond bleak and depressing. It was stultifying. The characters were completely uninteresting and bland. The setting was gray and unsatisfyingly drawn. There was no plot. There was no spark in this book at all. Even Mick Kelly, who is supposedly loosely based on McCullers herself, only has all too brief moments of being interesting. I never warmed to John Singer nor did I believe that any of these other desperate and simple people would be so fascinated by this deaf-mute man, who had walked among them for years without any such recognition. Nothing about this story made for appealing reading and while it was technically proficient, that doesn't absolve it of the responsibility of drawing the reader in and making the read a worthwhile experience. Personally, this reader was bored out of her gourd, put it down repeatedly and walked away from it, and ultimately finished it with a relieved sigh knowing I could go onto better things, things I cared to read.

And now, maybe having written this review, the log-jam will be broken and the rest of the reviews will come pouring out, making this an actual book related blog!

Good lookin'

It's never a good idea to try and fish for compliments from a child because they tend to be brutally honest. In our family, couple this with an innate tendency for backhanded compliments and you have a recipe for disaster. Slow learner that I am though, I continue to ask for abuse. Yesterday the kindergartner was talking about a story where the child thought his mother was the most beautiful mother in the world so I stupidly asked who he thought was the most beautiful. He told me I was (I do make him meals, afterall) without any hesitation but then gravely followed this with "Even though you're the prettiest, you do have an awful lot of freckles." Even without giving any credence to his change from "beautiful" to the slightly less intense "pretty" (which, incidentally, was probably intentional as he has an amazing vocabulary and the skill to use it to boot), it is clear to me that freckles don't make the beauty cut, despite said child having his own scattering of "brown spots" across that sweet face.

I did better on the compliment front a few weekends ago when I took the kids and headed up north to freeze our rears off at the annual Snows Fest by our cottage. I went out to a bar with my friend J. despite my not being a bar kind of person. For the record, I'm also not a stay up late kind of person nor an enjoys herself in large groups of strangers kind of person so this whole adventure was out of character. But I was along for the ride (and to drive all the more entertaining people home safely) and I decided to enjoy it. As I drank my water (my Lenten resolve against soda is still holding on but was sorely tested by the fishy tasting water at the bar), my friend abandonned me to go out to a fish shanty. You know: those things they drag out onto frozen lakes to ice fish in as if that could possibly be fun? Yes, apparently an old friend of hers and his buddies were fishing and wanted to head to the bar so they hooked up the shanty to the single snowmobile and dragged it full of people, propane heater still cookin' along, off the lake, up to the bar, and parked it on the road. Even better, the shanty was decorated with grass skirts all around it since the theme of the festival this year was Caribbean. Where but Michigan's UP would you see such a sight? So I'm sitting uncomfortably with people I don't know when I am summoned to the shanty. Apparently J. and C. have cooked up a plan to take the shanty another 4 or so miles to a farmhouse to party and they need me to come too. I poke my head into the shanty and C., whom I've never met before, takes one look at me and says, "You're f***ing adorable. I don't know you." Nevermind that he was blind drunk. Nevermind that he was younger than I am. It was the best part of the evening (I was also deemed "neat" later in the night). I guess freckles are just fine in his world. Perhaps I should let my kindergartner learn compliments from C.? Nah. Oh, and as for my husband's response? He was a little miffed that his compliments don't make me grin stupidly for days the way this one did. But like me fishing for the compliment from the kindergartner, he *has* to tell me I'm beautiful because he's stuck with me. ;-) Unsolicited compliments always trump the obligatory ones.

Oh, and we did take the fish shanty for a ride. It was terrifying and hysterical and fun all at the same time. But I don't think I want to do it again (unless I get a crazy compliment first!).

Lent

So this Lent thing is killing me. Somehow I managed to be the only one in my family to give up something tangible. I gave up soda. I never realized how frequently I reach for a soda instead of water. Clearly this isn't a good thing. My head definitely attests to it anyway as I've had the mother of all caffeine withdrawal headaches for a few days now (well, the headache is probably exacerbated by all the other lousy junk happening to me seemingly daily right now, but the lack of caffeine certainly doesn't help). But at the end of this, I should have kicked the habit and feel much healthier, right? At least I'm not going to be stinky, like the child who chose to give up baths as his Lenten sacrifice (I did tell him, to his chagrin, that baths and showers were two different animals so he won't really be unwashed for 40 days). And the oldest child knew that I was vetoing his plan to give up homework even as it came out of his mouth--his sacrifice now is to give up complaining when I ask him to walk the dog. And perhaps the family's biggest sacrifice is my daughter's intention to give up yelling at her brothers. Ah... for a little peace and quiet and family harmony! We just won't go into the husband's belated offer to give up beer despite having had it at business dinners the first two days of Lent. There's always that one failure for statistical purposes, right? He'll be pleased to know he fills that requirement. ::grin::

Winter Reading Challenge

Because I love these set 'em yourself challenges and because I didn't manage to finish the Fall Into Reading Challenge, I'm going to try challenging myself to the same thing I did then and will hopefully be more successful this go round. Inksplasher is hosting a Winter Reading Challenge that suits my purposes beautifully. I want to finish all of the books I currently have bookmarks in during the 9 weeks remaining for the challenge. That means I need to read:

1. Middlemarch by George Eliot (this was the big stumper for the Fall challenge and I'm still not very far into it)
2. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (I seem to have stalled out on this)
3. Trawler by Redmond O'Hanlon (which I am enjoying but is a slower read than I envisioned)
4. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (the newest addition to the in progress pile)

With luck I will manage all of these (and the others that sneak into my reading piles with no warning) by the March 19th deadline. Whee!!!!

Review: Summer Half by Angela Thirkell

I do so love the wonderful set of books comprising the Barsetshire chronicles by Angela Thirkell. Summer Half is not too far into the series but as all her books, may be read out of order (unless you are seriously quirky like me and must read in order). This particular book focuses on Colin Keith, Tony Morland, Rose Birkett and several others. Colin, not wanting to be a further financial burden on his father, decides to apply for a job in a boy's public school during the short summer term. here he comes in contact with Tony Morland, who is quite the young man now and with the self-centered and rather unconsciously entertaining Rose Birkett, who is leading her wildly jealous fiance a merry chase. Half of the story takes place at the school, where Rose is intrigued by Colin, who is entirely unimpressed by her but must try and diplomatically convince Winter, a fellow master and Rose's unhappy fiance, that he wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole. Thirkell's great strength in these well wrought and thoroughly entertaining books is to capture the minutia of the everday absurd so beautifully and believably. The other half of the book returns the reader to the Keith house and local area and allows the school relationships to be seen outside the distortingly small arena of a boarding school. As are all of Thirkell's books, this made me chuckle, grin, and just warmly enjoy the reading experience. And really, there's little higher praise than that.

Behind: A Perpetual State of Being

Don't you wonder about those people who always seem on top of everything? I sure do. And I'm clearly not one of them. I started this blog to help keep myself on top of my book reviews, keep me chatting about my running (which assumes I actually get off my rear and run), and just generally keep an ongoing glimpse into my life for anyone interested (or just plain bored). Somehow I've managed to fall behind on all three of those goals and I just started this thing in November! I swear I did learn that keeping on top of life was the best possible plan but I just seem congenitally unable to manage it. Shoot, I haven't even pulled off a birthday party for my daughter (her birthday's in September). Actually, I haven't even called to reserve the place yet. How appalling is that? And because I am nothing if not equal opportunity about neglecting things for all of my children, I have never made the playdate my oldest has been asking about since the beginning of the school year. I only signed my youngest up for tennis lessons today because he is home half days to nag me (and he missed the first session anyway so don't think I was on top of that either). Maybe one of those days I will morph into an on the ball sort of person. In the meantime, at least I'm fairly laid back about being a day late and a dollar short. (We'll get the house on the market sometime before the spring, I promise--or maybe sometime after the spring if we're working on "Kristen time.")