Saturday: The Middle

After I sent the little girls off to attend the birthday party...

...I decided to take a walk!

Now this was both a good idea and a bad idea.

Good idea because I'm the fattest I've ever been and it's past time to do something about it.

Good idea because I'd been putting off restarting my exercise schedule until summer when I had more time to get back on my treadmill.

Good idea because I've yet to even catch a glimpse of my treadmill let alone utilize it because the flooring issues from the Flood of 2010 have still not been resolved and my house is STILL an upside down mess. The treadmill is buried behind an upside down loveseat.

Good idea because there comes a time when you have to quit thinking about something and actually DO it.

Now with all of those good ideas, how could taking a walk possibly be a bad idea?

The only time I had to walk was at 12 noon on a summer day in June in the South when there also happened to be a heat advisory issued because of 110 degree heat index.

And it's been nearly 9 months since I exercised so I can safely say I'm not in the best shape.

Not such a good idea.

However, I went for a walk. I DID IT. I only walked for about 30 minutes which was truthfully enough in the oppressive and dangerous heat. I hope to be able to get back to my treadmill soon. Last summer I was so proud of myself because I was extremely disciplined, exercised every day, and even worked myself up to the point that I ran six miles! It'll take a while to get back to that, but a walk for 30 minutes is at least a start.

Remember my trip here and the mystery purchase?

I was searching for THIS:

Goof Off

I had never heard of this stuff before, but after the kids got acrylic paint on their clothes at VBS, there was a discussion on facebook about the best way to remove it. A mom suggested this product so I set out to find it. This stuff is supposedly able to remove all kinds of things including latex and acrylic paint, grease, lipstick, permanent marker, ballpoint pen and other tough substances from various surfaces. The VBS kids generally wear their VBS t-shirts every day so paint on a t-shirt is really not that big of a deal, right?

The problem I had was that Peanut got blue paint on a brand new pair of khaki shorts she'd just received for her birthday and as you may recall from an earlier post of mine, shorts for her age (10) that are of an appropriate length are hard to come by. (remember the booty shorts?!) so I was determined to get the paint out of her new shorts at any cost.

I'm happy to report that every bit of the blue paint came out! Goof Off worked so well on the shorts that I decided to tackle the shirts so I took a before picture.

There was significantly more paint on their shirts than on Peanut's shorts, so I'm still working on getting it all out. I'm confident that I'll be successful because Goof Off is a miraculous invention!

I have to say that the craft project requiring the acrylic paint was a group painting effort by all the VBS children. They had 3 canvases set up where the children would rotate through, much like reading groups, where each group would get a turn to paint together on the canvas. The finished products will hang in our craft room that's part of our rotation Sunday school program. I need to remember to take a picture of the canvases and post it! (more than likely the "blue" painting will take until next year's VBS to dry)

After my walk and while I was Goofing Off, haha, LaLa brought the little girls back from the birthday party. They had more fun than one could imagine. Pony rides, a life-sized ELMO (which terrified Dogos), a Sesame Street jumpy thing, Chick Fil-A chicken nuggets and a huge Elmo cake. They were happy to be home but not quite ready for LaLa to leave.

Here is the photographic evidence:

LaLa had to sneak out. She was barely out of the house for 45 seconds before Dogos' radar kicked in and she was on a LaLa hunt. Dogos is sitting at the top of the stairs crying and wailing Lala's name.


When she realized that sitting and crying would accomplish nothing, she resorted to this...

Yes, she's actually standing at the top of the stairs and shrieking LaLa's name.
Over and over and over and over.
You have no idea how much I wish I had video/audio for this picture.

Sometimes your children engage in certain behaviors that are so distressing and annoying that you reach a point where a decision must be made:

I will either have a conniption fit or laugh hysterically and capture this moment digitally so that I never forget it. As annoyed as I am right now, one day I will miss these fits because my babies will be gone.

Saturday: The End, will be up later this week.