Bad Frogs Part Deux

I am so tired... but I have been threatened to share deets on Bad Frogs...

I keep thinking what should I write about Bad Frogs Part Deux... but I keep thinking that the Vegas slogan is pretty accurate for this trip... what happened at Bad Frogs... stays at Bad Frogs... ;)

I will say this however... It was wonderful to see friends again face to face... I missed you guys terribly...more than I even realized. And then there were the new faces to meet... those that I had "talked" with on-line but had yet to meet in person.

R&R, you are one of the most FUN people that I have ever met! I know for a fact that for any future get-togethers... if you are there, it is guarranteed to be a BLAST! Thank you for the drinks... and the pics... you did get my pic, didn't you?

R&R's sister... you should've been down for the count this past weekend and instead you just kept picking yourself up and going, and going... don't know what you and your sister have running thru your veins but I need to get me some of that!

K... so much fun to meet you. I enjoyed our dance! Not only did you get a SEAL on the dance floor but getting me out there as well... you have some mighty strong powers of persuasion... or was there blackmail involved??? Some parts of that night are a bit fuzzy...

Tango... you are the WOMAN! I am halfway tempted to tell J that we need to move closer to Cincinnati in order to be closer to you... I don't think there is anything that you can't do... You did my pedicure and a complete realignment on my back and neck. I hope you know how much faith and trust I put in you... I have let J crack my back before (although honestly, he isn't as good as you) but I have never let anyone do that to my neck before... scared the hell outta me... but damn it felt great later that night.... Here's a bit of the conversation during my neck realignment... "Carrie, give me your neck," Tango says to me as she has my head in her hands. "You have it." "No, Carrie, give up control. Relax. Let me have your neck." It took me forever to relax... then all of a sudden... SNAP!... Tango had just cranked my head, and my neck made this snap, crackle and popping sound. Then she says, "Okay, other side." WTF???? Back thru the whole scenario again... til finally she cracked the other way. I have to tell you though the woman is brilliant! After a rubdown a little later in the evening, my neck felt fabulous! And I owe this woman a HUGE debt of thanks for finding something very dear to me that I lost the first night out... the funny thing is I had joked about losing it earlier in the evening and then a few hours later, when it actually happened, I was frantic. But there was Tango... frickin' Jack-of-all-Trades... finding it for me. Thanks, woman!!

To Adam, his mom, his Aunt, the bartenders at BF-Lisbon, our fantastic waitress, Samantha, at BF-Beaver Falls and manager, Steve (thanks for the shot!)... you were all fantastic hosts and hostesses. You are, in fact, Bad Frogs... without you all, these places would just be another bar and restaraunt. Thank you for the good time!

As for the stories... hmmm, not much to tell... ;) I behaved myself... watched other people drink (too many calories in alcohol, you know?) and tried to keep my friends outta trouble...

It's Our Parties... We'll Cry if We Want To...

Do you remember that feeling when you were invited to a party as a kid and for whatever reason... you couldn't go? K2 and I are both suffering that right now. Her best friend's birthday party is next weekend and get this... the parents are taking 12(!!) girls down to Gurnee for the night and then spending the day at Six Flags Great America. Quite the party, hey? Well, months ago I decided to make arrangements to go camping (cabin NOT tent yet) for that same weekend. She is upset because she can't go. It's her BFF... it's THE birthday party of the year. It was even suggested to me by her BFF's mom that she could spend the weekend with them. Well, I said no to that one... call me cruel but we have not had a family weekend in what seems like forever. Plus, it's Mother's Day... it would be nice to have all my kids around... at least while I can still force them. So she is missing it and she is pretty upset about it.

Well, K2, I know exactly how you feel. Some ladies from the BB are planning another trip to Bad Frogs in June (or was it July?) and I can't go. Money is really tight right now and with gas prices soaring (3.27 as of yesterday), it is just out of reach. I told J that I even think we should either cancel our family vacation for August or scale back. So how do I tell my kids that we aren't doing the big vacation we talked about and then turn around and try to justify my going to another state to go to a bar. It doesn't work. So while she is missing her biggest party of the year... I will be doing the same. Sometimes life does suck and she is learning that and I am yet again reminded of it.

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
- JD Salinger

What do you think??? True? For me, yes in so many ways... I am surrounded by family (husband and kids) and dear, dear internet friends who seem to support me in so many ways, especially when it comes to my support system on this fitness road I seem to have found my way to. J and the kids are so extremely supportive yet without being "mean" about it... "are you sure you should be eating that?" And friends from the BB who are there constantly with words of encouragement, especially when I was in my fitness depression and couldn't seem to find my way out. Or if I have had a great week, they are there with cheers for a job well done.

But the funny thing is... I don't find this everywhere. Why is it when some people start to lose weight others have to find ways to bring them down? Remember when Oprah lost a ton of weight... her popularity actually went down. Why is that? I ran into a similiar situation from other family members last Christmas. I only had one sister-in-law who actually asked if I had lost weight. And then after that another sister-in-law snidely asked "Just how was I losing the weight?" No mentions of "gee, you look good." Or "way to go" or "good job". And my mom... my mom who spent my entire teen years trying to get me to lose weight... from bribing me with new wardrobes to commenting that I needed skinny friends... never said one word... not one. Now you have to understand that my mom has battled weight issues her entire life and she is a person who can never be happy for someone who has something or has acheived something that she herself desires. But its sad really... This is my family... people who are supposed to be supportive and yet I get more support from friends I met thru the internet... and some of them are people that I haven't even met physically yet. Something is wrong with that picture!

However, the people who mean the most to me in the world... J and the kids are by far the most supportive. Sometimes reminding me to exercise or joining me on walks.... And J has never made cracks about my weight or made me feel bad about it. He has always accepted me for who I am... not that he wouldn't want to see me weigh less... but then it is more of a health issue for him and not an appearance one.

So I am truly blessed... to have the support system that I do. And yes, I really do believe that they are very pleased to see me happy and doing so well.

Thank you all!

Middle School Talent Night

Tonight was the talent show at our middle school. K2 decided to enter with a group of her friends. They performed a traditional Indian (as in India) dance that signifies friends collecting vegetables from the garden. They did really well despite one of the girls dropping out last night because of a swim meet she had tonight (ummm, didn't she realize this sooner?) and a slight operator malfunction with the stage curtain. But they did really really well! I tried to take a picture but it was too dark and my camera basically sucks. I am hoping that the mom of K2's friend will forward some of her pics to me.

My Weekend...

I love getting away by myself. I usually come back on Sunday night completely relaxed... recharged and refreshed. Which I did this time too, but also very tired! It's taken me a day to recoup!
The Lodge we go to is owned and operated by a group that also has about 12 cabins, a larger camp building (to house 40 people) and a campground. During the summer, it is mostly rented by summer camp type groups. Our lodge fits at most 14-16 people, although there are beds for more. It is nice with a open kitchen, dining, living room area... although we completely take that over with our tables set up for scrapbooking. The plus is the great fireplace in the corner of the living room which we keep going all weekend long. The grounds it sits on is great for long walks thru the woods however, we purposely plan our trips for colder weather. Most of us want to get pages done and found that when we went during the nicer weather we didn't get quite as much done.



We had 13 ladies participate in our weekend and one (my SIL enjoying Europe) was missing. We have never had 14 and honestly, that is quite enough! We definitely need to put a halt on any more newbies being added to the mix. All involved know a college friend of mine, whether it be from college, school, church or work... LH is the common link. Most of the ladies are scrappers with a few others doing other crafty type things. It is supposed to be a time for us to get away from our kids and husbands... the cooking and the cleaning... the yells of "Mom!"... It is supposed to be a time of relaxation, a time to work on hobbies, a little bit of ME time.

My weekend started off weird. I wasn't prepped like I normally am and just felt disorganized and unfocused when I arrived. It also didn't help that I had been awake for 36 hours from noon on Wednesday til midnight Thursday and then slept only 5 hours that night. On Friday night, after completing one page, a couple of glasses of wine and a little bit of conversation, I was ready for bed before midnight... a first for me! But I got some much needed sleep and felt like I could tackle my craft. Not so. I still struggled for awhile... The creative juices weren't flowing... I just felt stuck. Someone popped in a Sarah McLachlan cd which was a first... usually we spend our time talking and loud music tends to get in the way of that then there are the variety of tastes to compete with. Traditionally people who want music bring a mp3 player for their own use. I don't know what it was but the cd was grating on my nerves. I only knew one song and the rest was like nails on a chalkboard. I finally pulled out my mp3 and tuned out. That worked for about 15 minutes til the battery died. Then when I tried to recharge the battery (via a laptop) it wouldn't work... nothing, nada, zip! I really started to get frustrated at this point... it was back to the cd. During the next hour, my SIL sitting at the same table with me, kept saying how the music was driving her crazy and would I please ask them to turn it off. WTF??? Why does it have to be me? Isn't she an adult that could open her mouth to ask? Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and had to say something before I blew... so I asked the one who put it on if we could turn it off. She readily agreed. The crazy thing... I had 5 people besides my SIL who all thanked me for asking for it to be turned off. If that many people hated it, why didn't someone ask before me? This is not a quiet, shy bunch... yet no one opened their mouth. Finally after the whole music fiasco, I finally was able to settle in and start turning out some pages. I ended up staying awake until 5:15 a.m. working on my stuff. All but two others had long gone to bed.

As far as the scrapbooking goes, it was a fairly productive weekend. I got 21 pages done (minus the journaling) and have FINALLY completed my Florida vacation album from 3.5 years ago! I just need to finish some journaling and get it all put into an album. But damn, after working on it for 3 years, it feels good to be looking at the end of it.

The other thing, besides the music, that irritated me was the topics of conversation. Normally, we laugh, we joke, we tell stories about our kids and husbands and sometimes we get into serious topics of conversation... but normally we stay away from taboo topics. A couple were brought up this weekend and almost erupted into something more. For example, I don't remember how but abortion was mentioned. How much more taboo can you get? You had some that were on the pro-choice side and others who were on the pro-life side. I tried to stay out of it... it is a highly emotional topic and most people have strong opinions. However, when two of the pro-lifers made comments, one lady(DP) just said "I am not saying anything." Well, it was like throwing blood into the water and seeing the sharks circling. LH is in front of her saying..."What? You can say what you want. It's okay. You can voice your opinion... I think its wrong but you can voice it." Then you have KW behind her trying to get her to enter into the discussion all the time loudly voicing her opinion, "I want someone to tell me at what minute, at what second does it become a baby? When?" Poor DP just kept scrappin away, desperately trying to keep her mouth shut but turning bright red from the effort (which was even pointed out by LH). What was the point of this? Did we really need to get into it? There was no where for this conversation to go... all parties had their opinions, some highly emotional about it and honestly, it was a no win situation. It had the potential of ruining the whole weekend. I think DP did the right thing by staying out of it but it never should have came to that... with the other two ganging up on her (one in her face on the front, one at her back). I wish the topics could be discussed on a healthy less emotional table, it would really be interesting to hear others viewpoints. BUT when you are told right off the bat that your opinion is wrong, you know that the discussion isn't going to go that way.

It is usually at these weekends that I feel the need to make comments of shock value mostly to irritate, gross out my SIL... call me mean, but I so enjoy getting a rise out of her especially since she makes a whole production out of it (putting fingers in her ears and singing "la la la, I'm not listening"). My favorite moment came on Sunday. My SIL is my husband's sister and she doesn't want to know that her brother actually has sex (despite the fact that we have 3 children). So this is the area where I usually try to ruffle her feathers. On Sunday, I asked LJ if her husband was French Canadian (which I knew, but I just needed a lead-in)... When she said yes, I replied that my husband was Australian. Both SIL and LH, looked up and said, "He is NOT!." I then said "Well, he should be since he goes 'down under" so well." *snickers* Mission accomplished... it got laughs, groans and huge "Ewww" from my SIL. Now I will have to start thinking of one for next year. :)