When hubby works late it’s just me dishing up dinner plates and sitting down at the table with the boys.

It’s just me reminding the boys to eat and not to drink all their milk before they are even done with their first bite of “real” food.

At least 50 times of reminding them to eat and 30 minutes later, dinner is done.

It’s just me afterwards, wiping faces and hands, clearing the table, rinsing the dishes, putting away dishes and empty containers and wiping down the table.

I gave up wiping down the table.  I don’t really care enough that it might be sticky.

Morning comes quick enough.

It’s only me barking out the orders, tossing empty threats around and considering plea bargains.

It’s just me helping with pajamas, tidying up rooms, turning down beds and setting out toothbrushes and rinse cups.

It’s exhausting yielding all the boys inquiries alone, being the only one around to “hey look at this” and being both bad cop and good cop.

Bed time is quieter then when Daddy is home too, there is no wrestle or rough time.

It’s just me with a video, or a game or some books.

Only I say good nights, sleep tight, see you in the morning light

and try to sneak away before more questions arise or stories to tell get remembered.

Then the house is quiet and I sit somewhere hoping they both stay in bed and don’t come looking for me.

Isn’t that just terrible?

When it’s only me I can’t hide in the bathroom for very long.

They always look there first.

This makes me sad.

The winds won.

It’s the largest tree we had in our backyard.

It shaded our boys while they played on their play-set.

I loved to sit and watch the birds fly up and in and around.

I wonder what the backyard will be like come spring.

Not the same I’m sure.

We’ve been sick and so it has been a rough couple of days.

It’s a funny thing to take note of, the first time all four of us got sick at the same time, but it was monumental enough for me to at least realize it.

It was actually Aidan’s first time ever being sick-sick.

There was an adjustment period to us all being sick at the same time because there was no one able to designate themselves as the “taker care of” person and each one of us has a different need when it comes to be taking care of when we’re sick.

We all just did what we could, which was mainly laying still and moaning.

It was a little bit of learning experience too.  Knowing how bad I felt and then watching Aidan and Jacek go through the same thing was difficult.

As silly as it may sound it made me imagine families receiving much worse news then “He has a stomach virus it will pass in 1-3 days”.

It made me terribly sad and thankful that while we were splitting in two from dehydration we would get better and much sooner then later or never.

While your in the moment of being sick though that day when you’ll be feeling better tends to feel like weeks away.

Thankfully for us it was only about 4 days.

So, yes we are the mend and I wouldn’t mind a reprieve of say, 6-8 months before having to clean up “messes” that don’t belong to me.

We’re not talking toys here people.  So gross.

Stay healthy….

The stale scent of something seemingly close to alcohol wafted around him as he led me to the exam room.

Surprisingly but not really, he said almost nothing as he performed the exam and when finished whacked me in the chin with the fancy medical machine “on accident” and barely managed to mumble an apology.

I’m not a conversationalist myself but if you’re in a profession where it’s super important to discuss things with say, your patients,and you just don’t, well in my opinion you kinda FAIL at a huge part of your  job description.

He had never even introduced himself to me.

Sitting at the second of two chairs that had been squeezed into the room I caught him sweep his finger across his smartphone and read the message contained in the text bubble on the screen never once trying to conceal what he was doing from me, most likely because he felt it was perfectly okay.

Sitting silent and waiting for further instruction from him, the doctor, I busied myself with thoughts.

I battled the voice in my head, trying to convince it that the awful boozy smell wafting around the room was just his poor choice in cheap aftershave.

He fussed with the papers in my file.

Time crawled and awkwardness crept in, filling in the remaining pockets of air.

With 4 fingers to go on the “let’s see how many words he utters to me” hand survey that I was secretly conducting he mumbled something to me as he headed for the door.

Not understanding if his mumbling was directed at me or just an incoherent mutter I stayed in the exam chair with an eyebrow raised in confusion until he motioned to me like we were partners in a game of charades.

I stood and followed on his heels as he led me across the hall to an empty desk where he left me with an eye roll that not even a teenaged girl could pull of with such flair.

–

Now I’m not one to openly complain about poor customer service while out in public or at least I never used to be.  I’m more the wait instead type, till I’m safe in the confines of my home.  Once out of the public eye I’ll write an email to someone “higher up” or it most cases do nothing at all except vent about it, relentlessly, to the miserable pleasure of those closest to me.

Apparently being blown away by someones complete lack of professionalism causes me to do funny things because when a woman returned to the desk I had been discarded at I immediately questioned her if the doctor I had just been examined by was in fact a real doctor then launched into a full fledged complaint driven rant.

There were no looks of surprise or gasps of shock, only her head nodding in agreement.

The fact that see seemed bored by my tyrant only made me burn hotter.

Her laughter joined in with mine, once I’d cooled to a simmer and we moved on and past the spectacle.

Then the exam door opened with a loud click and all of a sudden he was a real doctor.

–

With a welcoming smile that seemed a bit rehearsed yet genuine he greeted me as if it was our first meeting.

His manners were professionally curt and he spoke using full precise and intelligible sentences.

He closed the door behind us and although we were in the very same tiny closet exam room it felt as if the walls had been expanded and we had ample room to stretch and become comfortable.

Seconds before I convinced myself that the behavior of this “doctor” mere minutes before must have been due to exaggeration on my part I heard a female voice begin to cackle.

I glanced his way.  He sat straighter then before, his smart phone dark and no where near him and while he still smelled sickeningly  sweet he acted sober and attentive.

The cackling came again so loud it seemed she might be sitting in the very same room with us.

He finished up the paperwork, personally escorted me out to the front desk, wished me a good rest of the day and made his way back towards the exam room where he paused for a second

before closing the paper thin door behind him.

Once upon a time there was a pathetic looking banana hanging around the kitchen.

He was the last one from his bunch and for a reason unbeknownst to him, he was being neglected.

Oh he was being touched, most days several times as he found himself on several different objects in and around the kitchen; on top of the cupboard, on the counter near the Keurig, on top of the toaster oven, etc. but no one would eat him.

He was becoming sick with worry.

What would be his fate?

Then came a chilly dark night and a woman in a fuzzy dark robe.

“Anyone want to make mini banana muffins?” she hollered all through out the house

And to the lonely almost completely over ripe bananas delight came a brilliant shrilling sound….

two small voices, in unison calling back, “YESSSSSSSSS we do.”

And so became a recipe – created, baked and enjoyed by the wonderful family who knew just what to do with the lonely pathetic looking banana!

One Banana – Mini Banana Muffins

**Find helpers with little hands to fetch all the following**

Ingredients:

1 (pathetic looking) large (almost over ripe) banana

1 egg (beat lightly) mixed with Almond-vanilla Milk (tasted amazing!) to make 1 cup ( or use regular milk if you need)

1 stick (1/2 cup) – softened butter

1 tsp (plus a little) vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp Baking S-o-d-a

–

Oven to 350

Spray mini muffin pans with cooking spray

Plop everything into one bowl.  Squish and mush and mix until lumps are gone or close to it.

Fill muffin pans

Bake time for mini muffins was between 8-10 minutes

You can certainly make normal size muffins or a bread but bake time will vary

Recipe yields: 3 1/2 dozen mini’s

–

Find same helpers as above to feed warm muffins too

Watch and smile in delight as they squeal and beg for “just 1 more!!”

–

And everyone lived happily ever after

(with no more pathetic looking bananas in sight)

–

The end.

She knows me well, this Bobbi girl, who to me is like the lost puzzle piece that got left out of the box but that I always manage to find when I’m exactly ready for it.

No matter how long its been since the last time I put the puzzle together it fits effortlessly into its spot every. time.  It’s kinda neat.

Friends like her are impossible to replicate especially now that I am in my mid-thirties.  To even begin to try I would have to meet someone and “get to know them” over the course of the next 28 years.  Our lives have been on the weaving wheel for that long.

Although we began on the same waiting platform we have chosen entirely different paths.  That is what makes us grand.

Our differences make us one complete person almost, okay well sometimes they also make us pull each others hair out, but she often gives me food for thought and I am most grateful for that.

It’s good…to have her..it’s good.

She questioned, posted through Facebook;

I want to be excited.  Tell me your “What gets you excited?”

Hmmm.

Did she mean, that rush that comes with getting or trying something new?

the rush of butterflies in your tummy (like the ones from your first kiss) when your feelings are so intense and so confused on where to go that they all end up tickling your insides?

or like jump up and down yippy excited?

No matter how you look at it, I think she means the stuff that feels so good that it when it fades you’re left feeling a little stale on the inside.

We are 10 days in to a new year, a new slate, blank page, what’s not to be excited about?

…new diets, exercises, motivation that seems remarkable, goals written on paper, foods to try, places to go, opportunity that rocks your world and magical words chosen to inflate us when we start to drift toward the slump of “crap, I don’t wanna”..

Eventually, sadly enough,and a lot sooner then we all wish, the initial rush of excitement always wains.

Then what are you to do?

I find ways to replicate it.

–

My, what got you started, is simpler then simple.

Fear.

The day the blood pressure monitor bleeped out 203/117  was the day fear became my motivator.

I never ran the mile in gym class at school.  I always walked it.  In fact, I hated running but after seeing those numbers I was scared enough to make promises I (secretly) didn’t feel capable of  keeping.

After 8 months I completed my first ever 5k race.  It was like discovering a secret super power I never knew I had.

This past June I found myself across the finish line at my 3rd 5k, in the best shape of my LIFE with so much support from family and friends that I felt those butterflies.

Two years later, the initial excitement is still there but it has turned into something else.

Now I get excited because it’s no longer a matter of can I do it but when will I do it?

Lately, my excited comes in all different forms.

What will I get in the mail or eat for dinner or write tomorrow?

What new connections might I make at work on Saturday?

What will I look like or feel like when summer arrives?

What Luna bar will I eat after my run?

Will I travel to Virginia to run my first 10k, with a friend that is my favorite piece of the puzzle?

That’s the primer coat of my life right now.

Possibility.

What gets you excited?

It wasn’t much of a moment, I think I was rushing but sometimes that’s when great things happen.

Actually, I don’t know if that’s true but maybe.

It was during Christmas break and I was busy getting ready to go somewhere with the family.

They, the family, were just beyond the bathroom, in which I had blissfully gotten to myself for more then just five minutes.

They, the same family as mentioned before, were being loud but really, they always are unless it’s bedtime and then they are quiet and I’m in my office staring at my laptop screen fighting off brain-mush (yes, it’s a real thing, trust me).

Anyway, I was getting ready and thinking about the impending NEW YEAR looming a head of me.

For the two previous years I had adapted the 3-6-5 List along with a “WORD” for the year.

Kind of like a mantra only, it’s just a single word.

In 2010 my word was Journey.  Intended was the growth and passion for living, for writing, for being a Mom, for getting to know myself, for opening up doors or climbing through windows of opportunity, addressing health concerns and I had planned on enjoying the ride…and you know what?, I really did.   2010 really served as the gateway for this here Klutter and gave me insight into who I had become AND who I aspire to be still.  I started things in 2010 that I’m still doing today. I formed habits that became every day normality.

Towards the end of  2010 I went through a bunch of medical “stuff” and as 2011 approached I was ready to feel like and get back to the me I had discovered in the beginning of 2010.

Rejuvenation was my word for 2011.  I got physically fit and focused on taking care of and maintaining myself.  Not only did I find balance but more importantly I pinpointed exactly what I need to create balance in my life.  This was huge and hearing my doctors tell me I have the health stats of a 20 year old was the icing on the cake.

Now, in 2012 I’m feeling a little bored.  At the end of last year I got away from all the physical activity I was doing.  Seems I have a trend for slacking off the last couple of months of the year.  I have big changes coming my way this year.  To be honest, I’m a little scared and apprehensive but I’m ready for it.

What I realized though, that busy day in the bathroom, was that I was going to need a PUSH.  A PUSH physically, to set bigger goals, like completing a 10k in under an hour or a PUSH mentally to find the confidence to put myself out there and take classes, volunteer, earn extra income, etc.

My word for 2012 is PUSH… I am applying it to everything that comes my way or that I want to see happen; monetary, educationally, spiritually, generosity, writing, exercise, setting goals, treating myself, loving others, living, etc.

Go big or go home!

P U S H!!!

What is your “word” for 2012?

I’ve asked the boys numerous times what there favorite thing about this past December was.

Each time they try to blurt out, “Getting presents on Christmas”, but I interrupt them before they can and tell them they can’t use that as an answer.

They quickly grow silent, thinking hard before answering.

I watch their faces and try to guess what they might answer this time around.

but I never seem to guess correctly.

They loved the advent calendar and all the wonderful surprises like Elf on the Shelf, movie night, day trip to Kango but especially PIZZA PARTY NIGHT, when they got to make their own chef hats for craft and their own pizzas for dinner!!

They loved North, which is what they named our elf on the shelf and laughed and giggled over all the funny things he did to us.

Snowball fight in the freezer

The underwear in the tree on Christmas Eve morning

I should also mention that they miss him very much(as do I).

Aidan says he loved the Christmas tree; watching Daddy and Jacek cut it down, decorating it and having it light up the parlor all month.

Jacek thinks being able to “really” help cut out, bake and decorate the Christmas cookies twice this year was pretty neat.

Without fail, every time I ask I get a different answer.

There’s something fantastic about that isn’t there?

I guess I feel the same way this time around, it was all my favorite but if I had to choose, one of mine would be this:

Driving The Polar Express (an advent special surprise) together (and no fighting)

What about you, do you have one favorite thing or can’t you decide either?

On or about December 4th I remembered, very clearly, why last year I only managed a few blog posts through out the month of December.

December is busy and in between everything that makes a Christmas special is the “normal” every day stuff.

The month was full;

of cookies and twinkling lights,

eyes full of surprise and wonder,

hidden treasures and lessons of love.

There was of course school, and trips to the store (many stores)

and let us not forget the arguments and the re-learning to share,

the messes and the tears (neither that lasted for long).

There were projects and crafts

an elf to find and advent envelopes to open daily

singing and dancing

pizza parties and movie nights

family, Santa

and lots and lots of fun.

December was without one thing, and this is probably the only thing I can say that December lacked at that is snow.

Every year near the end of say October I start to envision what our holiday season will be like.

With all the “elders” that gently remind me to “enjoy every second because they grow up so fast” it is hard not to feel pressured to create the BEST Christmas the boys have ever had.

Once the house is decorated though and the first batch of sugar cookies wait on the table to be grossly decorated with the cleverly disguised pieces of sugar I recognize what I always do every season, what is truly important.

I still allow myself to get caught up in the hustle though because a sick part of me truly loves the rush of euphoria it creates in my head and I admit, which I’m sure most of you already know, that I also over indulge in the material goodies that the season has unfortunately become all to well known for.

I do though, rejoice in my own way, I count my blessings, I give thanks and I try to be kind and good.

I love those that love me and even some that might not.

I stared at my sparkly twinkling tree each night, studying the ornaments that are beginning to resemble a collection of a well worn in family and I let the true holiday spirit take its place inside me.

For a few days there wasn’t much else that mattered.

And it was good, like the best kind of good.