Happy Last Few Hours of Easter Weekend!

I trust the Bunny found you all well?

Today was such great weather, we invited some friends over whose stuff we were storing (read: rotting) in our back yard, and we took several loads over to the dump. For $4 we got rid of A LOT of stuff, hers and ours. I also sold some of the kids' outgrown outside toys, so our yard is feeling a wee bit empty now. But that's okay, the kids have room to run! 

After supper we went to Fielding Memorial park and fed some birds and played on the playground and went for a walk. I will now attempt to post pictures, and NOT get so mad I stop blogging for 3 months.

Yup I'm mad, but not mad enough to stop blogging.

So here we are! On the playground! Me! Sliding down a slide! It was wonderful to play WITH my kids, instead of just watching from the sidelines like I have their whole lives. They thought it was hillarious. I must have gone down the slide 7-8 times with them.

 I held them up to the monkey bars and they got a feel what it was like to go from bar to bar. Pretty easy when Mommy's holding all your weight LOL. Don't worry, this didn't hurt my hernia.

 Swinging was so. much. fun. I got that swinging stomach lurch feeling as I swung, but it didn't nauseate enough to stop LOL The kids laughed so hard at pushing me on the swing I thought their heads were going to pop off.

I haven't sat on a swing since I think grade 9. My butt was too big even then. It hurt. Today didn't hurt at all! I don't know if they make swings bigger now or what, or if my deflating bum just fits .. but either way WHEEEE!

Just after we took this next photo (there was a similar one taken last summer by my dad when we came to this same park in July or maybe August) I had a very interesting/odd geographical realization. We went to the little landing that we've been to a couple times in the past, which has a picnic table and a little water fall and the ducks and other birds gather for the bread crumbs. It had always in my mind been a Walk from the car. Not too far, but far enough. Just after Jake took this picture, we were all walking down the lane towards the landing, and I broke out into a jog with the kids. For about 10 seconds. And then we were there. Are we here? I asked. It seemed much shorter. Too short to be the same place. Nope. Yup. We were there. Major realization. As a slow moving invalid of COURSE it would seem much longer of a walk. I'm almost embarrassed at how short of a walk it really is. But I know no-one was judging me before, and most probably he (my dad and/or Jake) CHOSE that spot BECAUSE it was so close and wouldn't wear the invalid-me out to get to it. But it was a jolt to my brain's map of the world to suddenly cinch up the distance along that path.

And here, because we can, are two very funny poses by two very funny children:

I think Sage looks like a model here. He's got 3-D glasses with the lenses removed, and that far away look like all great models have.

Hayden.. well. He's a ham. LOL

I found the picture. From July 2010. crazy.

I'm Dancing With Tears In My Eyes

A song by Ke$ha. The tears in my eyes part is what brought it to mind.

January? The last post I posted was in January? That's not what's upsetting me, but it's adding guilt. I shrug you off, Guilt! GO AWAY.

You. Readers. You can surely stay, if you're still out there.

So to quickly catch you up on the last *gulp*4 months around here:

Jake quit smoking cold turkey and today marks a completely smokeless three weeks. He's doing awesome and reports his sense of smell is annoyingly acute now.

Hayden has lost five teeth.

Sage is developing rapidly into a basketball nut.

The boys and I joined the YMCA and the kids have taken swimming lessons and will soon also start their gymnastics and dance classes as well. Sage is in intro to dance and Hayden is in Contemporary/Jazz. I didn't feel that he should have had the social stigma held against him joining the ballet class, and I was thoroughly prepared to put both of them in ballet, but when Zumba ends Saturday morning, the little ballerinas are all lined up outside to use the same room and they're so pink and flowery and tutu-y that I crumbled and just couldn't sign the boys up for that much floof-foo.

I love to work out. Loving hour-long Zumba classes as well as the treadmill where I, Jennifer Huss, run. That's right, run. I started just walking, but about 2 weeks ago I took some expert runner friend's advice and mixed 1 minute of running in between 4 minutes of walking. I've been increasing the ratio and taking my time warming up, and now I usually start with 6 minutes of walking, 4 minutes running, then another 6:4, usually continuing that until about 40 minutes when I finish running and walk to cool down for 5-10 mins. A couple days ago I was in a total run-zone and didn't stop after the 4 minutes. I continued for 8 minutes and was comfortable, relaxed in my upper body, breathing hard but not belabouredly, no pain, brain numbed by the excellent music in my ears.. I felt like I could go and go and go. It was awesome! Unfortunatly the treadmill's computer suffered a system error which brought me to a screeching halt. By the time I got the attendant to come over to look, decide it needed service, and went on a different machine, my zen zone-out was gone and I just couldn't get it back. It's so true that running is mental. Now that I know it's out there, I'm gonna go get that zen zone-out again.

Weight-loss wise I'd plateaued (with a slight upward slant) ever since Christmas, but I've reversed it and am at my new all-time-low since 1996. I'm 295lbs, lost 146 total since Jan 2010. Health-wise my wound is frustratingly STILL AROUND and is preventing me from being scheduled for my hernia repair. I discovered it around Christmas (and was probably one of the factors contributing to the halt in weight-loss as I believed I couldn't start excercise) and in early January got it diagnosed by my family doctor. He sent me to a Sudbury surgeon whom I saw at the end of February. Dr Snider said he wouldn't do the repair until my wound was completely and well healed, as even in a perfect situation, hernias have about 20% chance of infection/complication/crapola because of the foreign mesh they have to stitch into you. With an existing wound in the same area, that would increase to a stupidly high percentage, which he wouldn't risk. The hernia is in the abdominal area between my ribs and belly button, and sticks out like 1/2 a volleyball. It's gross. And it's growing. It used to look like an elbow sticking out. Now it looks, like I said, like a volleyball. I wear a tight elastic binder every day all day to support it. It mostly doesn't hurt, except yesterday I sneezed and didn't hold it with my hands and that was painful. Also painful is when the cat jumps on me, or a kid elbow uses it as leverage to get off my lap. Whenever this stupid wound heals I can book my surgery and begin another HOPEFULLY MUCH SHORTER recovery. Whatever happens, the surgery will definitely be AFTER ->

-> We are renting a cottage at the end of June on Lake Mindemoya on Manitoulin island, and we can't wait! There's no way I'm NOT going in the water again this year, so my hernia repair will be AFTER this week-long paradise vacation. My sister and family are sharing the 4 bedroom cottage (camp) with us, and my dad too. The yard is huge, the lot is private, the beach is rocky but the water is sandy sandy sandy awesomesauce.

And on that super-high note, I will end this here. But I promise, it won't be 4 months before I post again.

Love
Jennifer