Rachel Callahan

The Contents of My Brain, In Numbered Fashion.

September 30, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Just My Luck, The Blissfulness of Life

1. Admission of Guilt.

Mom gave me a dozen eggs lovingly laid by her chickens yesterday at lunch. Ali was thrilled. Nothing is better than Gramamma’s eggs.

Err, Gramamma’s CHICKEN’S eggs, that is.

Anyway. We were getting out of the car, and….

Yes. It fell. All of them, in their multi-colored beauty. Smashed. In the garage.

Ali’s reaction: “What did you DO?!?!?!”

“I dropped the eggs.”

“You broke GRAMAMMA’S EGGS??!!!”

“Yes, baby. I’m so sorry.”

“We need to go tell Gramamma. We need to go back to Mammaw’s and tell Gramamma right now.”

Dear Gramamma, Please consider this post my confession and request for forgiveness for my grevious sins. Please also pass along my condolences to the chickens, but don’t show them the pictures. I don’t want them to be traumatized.

2. Mom Jeans.

Speaking of my Mom and Mammaw (Mammaw being my Mom’s Mom), Mom told me at that same lunch that she was proudly wearing her non-mom jeans that day.

At which point Mammaw said, “I knew it!! I looked at your behind when we were walking up the stairs and thought to myself that those MUST be the jeans that you got for Rachel’s blog, because your butt sure does look a lot smaller that it did last week!! And then I thought to myself, well my goodness, it really must work!”

I love Mammaw so much!

Of course I jumped at the opportunity to back up my Mom Jeans Theories and tried to convince Mammaw to go shopping with me. For the threequel and all – Great-Grandmother Jeans.

3. Love Is…

Chris randomly asked me Monday night as we were lounging on the couch what I was thinking about, and I answered,

“I’m thinking about those two Dove bars in the cabinet, wishing that they were individually wrapped Dove Promises rather than whole candy bars. It feels so much less guilty to eat the singles than a whole candy bar, even if I eat the same amount.”

He happily jumped up and disappeared for a few minutes, and I heard much rattling and crinkling from the kitchen. He then returned with a bag full of shiny aluminum:
and proudly presented me with his handiwork: segmented Dove bars wrapped into guilt-free, individual bites:
He makes me giggle.

He also made me giggle a couple of weeks ago when I got this text message from him while he was in the basement and I was upstairs in my office, right after I sneezed (apparently pretty loudly):

Yup, he’s a keeper.

4. Kid’s Market

For those of you in the Birmingham area, I’m sure we’ve ALL been to Kid’s Market by now. I waited until Monday, eight days into our city’s hugest consignment sale, and found out that the pro of waiting that long is that it is completely devoid of other shoppers (and their screaming babies). The con, however, is that almost all of the cute, trendy stuff is gone.

Everything that’s left is either cute and not trendy, or trendy and NOT cute, like these pants, which won the award of The Most Tacky Thing I Saw At Kid’s Market This Year:

My two year old will NOT be wearing a lace-up-crotch pair of blue jeans anytime ~~soon~~ ever.

And, finally,

5. The Most Gorgeous Thing I’ve Seen All Week:

Victoria Jane, the fifth child of our friends Greg and Julie and long-awaited little sister to Abby, was born this week. So beautiful, still, and peaceful….

At least she is since I’m not responsible for feeding her all night long.

A Better Choice in Rearview Messages!

September 29, 2009 Rachel Callahan Rachel's "Brilliant" Marketing Ideas, Utter Silliness

I might have mentioned once or twice how much I absolutely DESPISE writing on the butts of clothing. I mean – come on. Find a better place to write things!

HOWEVER, the pandemic of butt literature just continues to grow.

So, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!

And since there seems to be a lacking of positive messages on butts these days, I am now launching a new line of clothing to fill this growing need:

Booty Faith: A Better Choice in Rearview Messages.

That’s right – let’s share the good news with the world the way that the world shares things – on butts!

The first line of clothing that we offer is Virtue Booty. You can choose from many virtues, including Faith:

Hope:

Love:

Modesty:

And Chastity:

Wearing these clothes will create many teachable moments! When your daughter asks you what the words mean on your butt, you can share truth with her!

(Umm…oops. All Ali learned that day was that it is apparently fun to stand against a wall and look back over one’s shoulder.)
Moving on to our second line-up: Denominational Booty.

Tell the world what kind of church you go to!

Is it Baptist?

Or Assembly of God?

Perhaps Methodist?

Or Presbyterian?

Don’t worry, Presbyterians. We as a company completely understand the importance of specifying what sort of Presbyterian you are. So the Presbyterian skirt comes in two customized options as well:

PCA:
And PC USA:

And we don’t just stop at the easy denominations. No way. All you churches out there with names longer than your pews, we have you covered too:
But if you want to be a bit more specific on your beliefs, our third line-up is for you: Theological Booty.

These skirts are great debate starters! Tell people where you stand on the intricate issues of Faith and just wait for all of the opportunities you will have to argue endlessly!!

Are you a firm believer in Predestination?

Or do you tend to debate the other side of the fence?

And of course, your butt is a great place to explain your end times beliefs:

Yes, Booty Faith is finally here, ready and willing to fulfill our society’s need for a better choice in butt messages!

Be sure to keep an eye out for our upcoming Spring 2010 lineup, including Spiritual Gifts and Love Languages!!

Thanks to Rachel from Rambling Robinsons for taking part in this quite ridiculous photoshoot with me!!

A Fleaed Foamy Feline.

September 28, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Just My Luck

So I very suddenly and violently came down with an allergy to Oreo on Friday. We’ve had her for five years, and I have always bragged about her amazing hypo-allergenic properties – she doesn’t dander, she isn’t oily – she’s tiny and puffy and pretty and clean.

Until Friday.

I couldn’t quit sneezing, feeling sinus pressure, having runny eyes and nose…

I noticed last week that she had a bunch of weird black specks in her fur. She usually stays pretty clean, so I found it odd, but after searching her fur for anything living and coming up with nothing, Chris and I concluded that she must have just “gotten into some dirt”.

(Yes, she’s an indoor cat. Yes, us concluding that she could have gotten into some dirt whilst staying indoors IS a reflection of my cleaning habits.)

So on Friday, when she still had it in her fur, I figured maybe I should brush it out, and that would help my allergies.

But messing with it – OHMYGOODNESS. It set a BOMB off right in the middle of my face. I only THOUGHT I was having an allergic reaction before.

But I got all of the specks out, and decided to see if once the dust settled, everything would be okay.

Saturday morning: ALL NEW black specks. MORE sneezing, pressure, running of all facial orifices.

I tweeted, as a joke, that I was suddenly allergic to my cat, and so I was going to try giving her some Benadryl.

Called the vet: they said it sounds like flea dust.

They told me to put some of the black specks in water, and if it dissolved into blood, then it was flea dust (aka – Oreo’s blood from them biting her).

I put some in water, and sure enough…my little bit of water started turning into the red sea.

Ew.

Vet said that Oreo was probably having an allergic reaction to the fleas, which was causing her skin to flair up and dander, hence causing my allergic reaction to HER.

And, besides a flea treatment, guess what the vet told me to give her?

Yup, Benadryl.

I hate it when my jokes become reality.

(Vet also told me to give her a bath. I will do a lot of things to help my cat, but THAT is not one of them. I don’t have a death wish, after all.)

He told me to give her children’s liquid Benadryl, of which I happen to have a whole bottle minus one dosage, due to finding out that Benadryl makes Ali a VERY cantankerous child.

So I filled a syringe and proceeded to attempt the impossible: medicating a cat.

I haven’t given Oreo medicine in years, but somehow she remembered.

I picked her up and moved toward her mouth with the syringe, and she started VOLUMINOUSLY foaming from the mouth, somehow accomplished by raking her tongue feverishly across her teeth (I suppose that could be termed “gnashing of teeth”).

Ew.

Crazy amounts of foam were cascading from her impenetrable mouth and flying around the room as she lashed her head back and forth. It looked something akin to one of Ali’s bubble baths if there were a fan involved, except much less sanitary.

I chased Oreo around the house, penned her and held her down a few times, took a complete dousing of slimy foamy cat saliva, and managed to get maybe an eighth of the dose actually down her throat.

Which is bizarre, seeing as how she only weighs maybe eight pounds. How DOES she manage to win every single time in hand-to-paw combat?!?

Then I spent the rest of the day finding and cleaning up little piles of foam, as she continued to create her foamy toxin for good measure.

Ew.

Second Benadryl dose time: I drafted Chris to help me. He held her as she repeatedly knocked the breath out of him with her freakishly strong back leg kicks, all while covering him (and I) with another round of flying foam.

He surmised that she was using her awesome hair-balling abilities to actively reject the medicine, hence all of the foam.

Lovely.

However, between Oreo’s Benadryl, my Benadryl, the flea medicine, and Ali’s bedtime prayers where we asked God to make everyone feel better EXCEPT for the fleas, I definitely am feeling relief from my symptoms .

Oreo, however, doesn’t seem so thankful.

NYC, From A (Blogger’s) Observation Deck

September 26, 2009 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, New York Ninja Trip, Shopping: A Girl's Best Friend

I’m back safe and sound in my happy little Birmingham now, after my grand adventures in The Big City. Having never been to New York City before, I learned a LOT. Some things that I learned were confirmations of the way I had always “heard” it was.

The stereotypes of taxi drivers – totally true.

The stereotypical accents – completely accurate.

The massive crush of people EVERYWHERE – yup, that too. But there were some other things that I learned about The Big Apple:

Everything is classier in Manhattan. Even the things that usually have no class whatsoever:

Seriously – inside Victoria’s Secret headquarters: Not a single way-too-larger-than-life-and-nearly-naked picture:

I wish I could shop THERE for my underthings rather than the actual store.

Speaking of Larger-than-Life, New York is making efforts at fighting the stereotypes and cultural expectations created by the overwhelming amount of ten-thousand-foot tall super-skinny-sexy ads all over the city by having this statue in the mall, mere feet from said ads:

And, of course, this statue came with her male counterpart.

I learned a LOT from Bubar, my West African Central Park Bicycle Tour Guide:

His favorite subject was where movies were filmed. He showed me EVERY spot in Central Park that EVER had a movie filmed there…

And even the statutes in tribute to characters in movies, including this statue to Balto, the dog from Alaska.

Bubar: “Isn’t Alaska near Alabama?”

Me: “No, not so much. It’s pretty much the exact opposite direction.”

Bubar: “Are you sure? I always thought they were next to each other.”

Only in the alphabetical listing, Bubar.

Bubar was also very set on showing me where all of the celebrities lived around Central Park, and it did strike me as odd that in our suburbian-sprawl city of Birmingham, the richest of the rich hide away behind gated communities and estates. Whereas in New York, they are in THE most visible parts of the city..

And although some of these buildings that housed celebrities had magnificent architecture,

A lot looked like any old building that could be found in a declining downtown area, totally unsuspect of their multi-million dollar apartment pricetags:

(By the way, if you’re interested, according to Bubar, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have a condo in the Essex House, and Yoko Ono lives in the beautiful building in the picture right above.)

Speaking of rich celebrities, Bubar kept trying to lump me into “rich people” like the people that lived in the buildings. I kept telling him that I was NOT at ALL rich, but he kept saying it.

Then, when the tour was over, I made the mistake of asking him to drop me off on Fifth Avenue.

He nodded his head knowingly. “Mmmm Hm.”

I quickly stammered “Obviously I can’t BUY anything, I just want to see it.”

Oops. Credibility Fail.

Bubar was a great tour guide, and he was quite insistent that he needed to take this picture for me:

Which led to a panic attack that I had right after Bubar dropped me off and I reached into my camera case and my camera was gone. All of a sudden all of my nice thoughts about Bubar vanished and I thought he managed to lift my camera. I took off running down the street in the direction he came, completely panicked and knowing I’d never catch him, when all of a sudden I realized…

It was hanging on my wrist.

Sorry, Bubar. I should have never doubted you.

So, on Fifth Avenue: I didn’t have the guts to enter a single store, except for FAO Schwarz:

There were awesome Full-Sized Lego creations of Harry Potter, Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid:

This is the angle of me looking UP at Hagrid – he had to have been twelve feet tall: And a toy soldier made out of gumballs:

I really had no idea what an obsession I had with toy stores until I came to NYC.

I somehow got totally mixed up in FAO and ended up on a different street and went three blocks away before I realized my mistake. After finding my way BACK to Fifth, I continued my quest for NYC Understanding.

For instance, all of the stores had security men with fancy earpieces waiting to attack me for entering the holy of holies without at least $10,000 in cash in my wallet:
(Hence why I didn’t go in.)

And, among all of the top designer stores that I recognized,

There were some slightly less-than-smart-with-the-whole-uppity-naming-thing designers, also on Fifth Avenue:

Um, yeah. Marketing 101 might be in order.

I’m Going to be a Ninja When I Grow Up.

September 25, 2009 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, New York Ninja Trip

Today was The Big Event, aka the reason that I am in New York City. The event was held at the breathtaking Mandarin Oriental Hotel right in front of Central Park:

We were on the 35th floor, and the views were magnetic to all of our over-eager blogger cameras:

Only problem: The dang glass (note puzzled looks and wrinkled noses). After we all tried shooting at different angles, with and without flashes, sideways, and using our invisibility cloak and STILL not being able to get rid of our reflections, we finally realized what we needed to do to satiate our photographical needs: cover the reflection with ourselves.

Uh, duh.

There we about fifty of us, almost all women, except a couple outliers:

Isn’t he precious? He tried hard to steal the spotlight with his cuteness factor – he tried so hard that he exhausted himself and totally missed the event due to an unavoidable nap.

Our host was Euro-Pro, a company that I have become very impressed with over the past two days. They are a family owned business specializing in very original ideas in cleaning and kitchen products. What really impresses me is how genuine they are in pursuing and trying to gain feedback from consumers like us, and using that information to come up with new products that fill existing needs, rather than spending all of their time in advertising and convincing people that they need their product.

They had so many of their company’s executives there, as well as several from their marketing company, Alpaytec, all intent on investing in quality time with us and listening to ideas and feedback.

The main unveiling at the event was the Ninja. And wow – it is going to make my life so much easier! If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you know how much I love juicing fruits and veggies, and especially making them into smoothies (mostly just the fruits – I’m not daring enough to try to feed Chris a carrot and spinach smoothie – no need to waste perfectly good vegetables.) You may also remember that I bought a new blender in the attempt to actually CREATE my smoothies, as my old one wouldn’t crush ice.

My new one wasn’t much better – I am always finding myself shaking it, beating it, opening and rearranging it, and in general strong-arming it into simply doing what it says it will do and CRUSHING ICE.

It especially refuses to crush ice without a liquid accompanying the ice, which makes my smoothie making MUCH more complicated.

But get this: I personally tried it out, so I can vouch that I:

– Put JUST Ice Cubes (no liquid) in the Ninja,
– Pushed the button for MAYBE 15 seconds at most
– NEVER had to shake, beat, or otherwise manhandle it,

and ended up with snow:

I am in LOVE.

Dear Blender-that-I-paid-twice-as-much-for-as-a-Ninja-costs: I hope that you can find a loving new home via E-bay.

Our celebrity chef, Robin Miller (who was quite hilarious and entertaining, by the way,) also showed us a lot of other uses for the Ninja that REALLY speed up food prep:

In just a one hour demonstration, she made 7 or 8 different items, including chicken salad, salsa, smoothies, sorbets, pasta sauce, and Mushroom Soup, all of which we got to eat later at an amazing lunch:

The sorbet, of course, was my best friend.

I will be making me some sorbet. Very soon. I bet sorbets make a great side item for smoothies.

We also got to see all of their steam cleaning and vacuum products,

Which were also super-cool. I had no idea that you could steam clean and sanitize your floors and counters using no cleaning chemicals at all – obviously I am WAY behind in my cleaning technology.

All in all, the event concluded with a bunch of Moms drooling all over cool new toys that will supersize our Mommy-Quality-of-Life – yes, we were completely starstruck by the Ninja and it’s steamy friends.

And finally, to make the event all the sweeter, I got to connect with some bloggers that I’ve worked with at 5 Minutes for Mom, but have never met in real life – Shera from A Frog in My Soup and Lisa from Crazy Adventures in Parenting:

And, of course, our token napping baby, who TOTALLY wants to be a Ninja when he grows up, too.

The Ninja can be viewed in more detail at www.ninjakitchen.com

Blogger Integrity Information: Although my travel and accommodation is being provided by the host company for this trip, they are not paying me for or requesting that I blog about their product. All opinions that I have shared or will share in the future are my own opinions.

Barack Obama is a Mommy-Blogger Wannabe.

September 24, 2009 Rachel Callahan I'm a Glutton for Adventure, New York Ninja Trip

So you may or may not remember that while I was in Chicago for Blogher, Barack Obama was also there.

(I, Of course, assumed that he would be speaking on a panel at BlogHer, but he was oddly missing. I think he might have had hurt feelings by the discriminatory presence of “Her” in the title of our conference, and so backed out at the last minute.)

THEN today, after I arrived at La Guardia, I got in the shuttle van along with ELEVEN other people crammed against me, all of whom happened to be over 70 years old and having very enlightening conversations reminiscing about a comedy routine that they thought Clark Gable did, or was it Billie Holiday? No, no, Ethel, it was definitely Clark Gable!

(Don’t believe me? I was shoved in the very back corner with THREE others on my row, trying to keep my coffee from spilling all over me and them as our driver fulfilled every stereotype of a NYC cab driver that I’ve ever heard):

My van mates were super fun AND nice. Much nicer than the driver, who apparently hated me. Anyway, a couple of my new friends needed to be dropped off at a hotel near the U.N. And, guess who was there today?

That’s right, Barack Obama.

Either he’s stalking me, or he’s really trying to break into the Mommy Blogging world.

Poor guy. If he’d only chosen “Mommy Blogger” on career day instead of “President”. . .

Thanks to his presence, millions of roads were closed, just like Chicago, and billions of Secret Service and Police cars lined the roads that weren’t closed:

And my poor elderly friends? Had to be let out NINE blocks early, luggage and all, to fight their own way through the barricades and security.

(Hopefully they didn’t get arrested for pipe bombs made out of denture cream.)

And then, poor Mister President, he left his dome light on in his limo, and had to wait for his driver to flag someone down to jump them off:

See, if he had only been a Mommy Blogger, he could have been on SuperShuttle with me, flinching at my driver’s determination to run over bicyclists, instead of waiting for a new limo battery.

In other adventures, I walked to Times Square (a few blocks down from my hotel), and it looks JUST like TV – crowded, crazy lights, crazy people…

Even the Times Square Police Department couldn’t resist the temptation to be all lit up!

Not that there were any police there, seeing as how they were all clogging up traffic near the U.N….

I also felt horribly guilty as I got to see the Times Square Toys R US and Ali wasn’t there to appreciate the magnificence of it with me, including an INDOOR ferris wheel:

Oh how she would have loved to ride in the Mister Potato Head Car…

But I satiated my guilt by buying her overpriced M&M souvenirs and VERY overpriced all-Pink M&Ms at this three story behemoth of a store:
Oh – and finally, I think that New Yorkers LIKE to be crowded all up in each other’s business. I took this picture from the airplane:

Hundreds of sailboats in that little harbor staring at each other, and only one sailboat brave enough to venture out into the Hudson…

Then again, maybe that was the only sailboat that didn’t know that PLANES sometimes land in the Hudson.

Glad it wasn’t us.

More adventures to come tomorrow!

** If you’re feeling out of the loop and don’t know why I’m in New York, you can read about it here.

I’m Using My "Get Out of Blog Free" Card Today.

September 23, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Just My Luck, Toddlers: The Experience

So the last couple of weeks have been ten times more chaotic than normal weeks, BESIDES the fact that I’m leaving for New York this morning and have been completely unprepared, thanks to the current state of chaos of the rest of my life.

So, in order that I can get myself together enough to BOARD MY PLANE this morning, you’re not getting a “real” post today.

I do, however, always have a proliferation of pictures of Ali hanging around, so I will write an “indulgent” (as Simon would say) post all about my child, despite the fact that it will be like the sixth post about Ali in a week.

(I guess I’m a Mommy Blogger after all.)

So anyway, ever since AJ had pigtail braids at the Princess Party, Ali has been dying to have some of her own.

Well, okay, that’s not true. I’VE been dying to try it, and so therefore convinced Ali that she has been dying to have some of her own.

So after exciting her to the point of getting her to sit still, I attempted it.

It wasn’t easy. She wasn’t still. They weren’t pretty. But they were:

However, it didn’t take long until her stubborn curly hair had it’s way with those braids:

And then they REALLY weren’t pretty. Curly braids?!?!?! Who knew curly-headed people had SUCH problems with braidage!

But she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, braids became her new obsession.

So, after naptime that day, I decided to reboot the braids.

I pulled them tighter until her eyes were slanted back from the pressure, and that seemed to make a difference. They managed to stay mostly straight, with only slight arcs in them:

Yes, yes, I know that they look like glorified rat-tails straight from the 80’s. But every braid has to start somewhere.

In other news, we bought her winter coat, seeing as it was on sale for 40% off at Children’s Place.

(I’m pretty sure that all retail establishment schedule of clothes and sales must be dictated by their corporate offices in ANTARTICA, because they never come close to lining up with our funky Alabama seasons.)

(If you could call them seasons.)

(However, it works out nicely, because that means that coats get clearanced out before our weather drops to the point of even needing long sleeves.)

So, without further ado, Ali in her new coat TOTALLY reminds me of Lucy in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe:

Aside from the pink, of course.

I had to literally PRY her out of that coat, and hide it so that she didn’t beg to wear it every day. After all, no one wants a coat to smell like hot summer sweat before it’s even cold enough to wear it.

Finally, I mentioned yesterday that we kept Luke on Friday. They had a blast, and Ali explained to Luke the way that life worked.

They were riding side by side as such, and Ali observed the following: “Luke has a brown shirt on. I have a pink shirt on.”

Then, thoughtfully, turned to Luke and informed him, “When I was a little boy, I wore that brown shirt.”

Glad we cleared THAT up.

We took them to Buffalo Wild Wings that night, where we totally embarrassed them by teasing them about being on a date:

…but they WERE holding hands, for the record.

…and sharing accessories.

(Let’s keep this picture our little secret from Luke’s Daddy. He might never let me keep Luke again. Or speak to me ever again, for that matter.)

Well, I suppose that turned into a little bit of a blog post after all. That always seems to happen to me. I’ll be having that “Get out of Blog Free” Card back now, thankyouverymuch.

Maybe I’ll use it tomorrow, depending on how crazy of a day I have in New York!

A Shredded Diary.

September 22, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Actually Possibly Informational, Just My Luck

So I have been doing The “30” Day Shred workout video along with the rest of the Bloggy World, and, in the interest of full disclosure and accurate blogging, I kept a diary of my workout experience to be able to properly review the ~~DVD of Doom~~ product.

Without further ado, here is my Shredded Journal:

8/27 – Day One

Video not as hard as expected. Can do anything for 20 minutes, right? Very fond of how fast it moves. Except for the push-ups – ha! As if I’ve EVER done a push-up.

Noticed later that night that my legs didn’t really care for traveling down stairs unless done in an octogenarian fashion.

8/28 – Day Two

Oh my goodness the pain. Unable to walk. Stairs are suicide. Have to use handrails like walkers with tennis balls on the bottom. Did Day Two anyway – actually felt better while exercising than at any other point during the day.

Ali highly enjoys shredding with me. Somehow her two year old muscles are exempt from the pain. Total Fairness Fail.

Sent Jillian detailed and deliberate hate mail for ruining my previously pain free life.

8/29 – Day Three

Excruciating pain in every muscle – seriously cannot believe that every cell in my body aches.

Shredded again anyway, knowing that I’d be in a wheelchair for it the next day.

Chris really wanted to go to the waterpark one last time before the summer was over. I, being the loving wife that I am, agreed. Waterpark not much fun when you cannot move without JILLIAN MICHAELS knifing you up one side and down the other.

Chris also totally didn’t understand or believe the level of pain I was in. After bragging that his 5 mile run beforehand would “even things out”, Chris joined me in my effort to Shred.

Said husband lasted about five minutes, with many breaks interspersed.

I created a Jillian Voodoo Doll and tortured it mercilessly by ripping it’s arms and legs off. Definitely didn’t help my arms and legs feel any better, but my sense of justice was relieved.

8/30 – Day Four

Oddly woke up less sore than I went to bed. First day I didn’t really WANT to do it, but I did it anyway. Holy Hand Grenade!! it’s sooooo painful. It feels like Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom sounded when they were frying that guy alive.

At the end of the day, Chris sheepishly admitted that he had been in quite a bit of pain from his five minute sample Shred the day before. In fact, going up and down the stairs had about killed him. Ha! Vindication.

8/31 – Day Five

Chris’ Legs still hurt. Mine don’t. Heh heh heh.

9/1 – Day Six

I hurt so little that I almost forgot to do the Shred. But I remembered. And it wasn’t bad. Maybe time to increase to level two?

On second thought, it’s probably like The Death Machine in The Princess Bride. Jillian will shave TWO years off of my life for each day on Level Two. Nah, will wait until after vacation.

9/2 & 9/3 – Days Seven and Eight

Seriously starting to get the hang of it. Really loving the short segments of each exercise, and the 20 minute total. Very manageable. I could do this for the rest of my life!

Okay, maybe not.

9/4 – Day Nine

Leaving at Lunchtime for Atlanta Superdate with Chris. Should I shred before I go? Okay, I will so that I can go with no guilt whatsoever. Felt good.

9/5 – First Break!!

Walked at least 567 miles around Atlanta. Thanked Jillian multitudinous times for getting me in shape in preparation for all the walking.

Also noticed for the first time that my abs were actually starting to show some definition. Could exercise actually be WORKING?!?! That’s never happened before….

9/6 – Day Ten

Shredded right after getting home from Atlanta. Felt good, ready to get back to it.

9/7 – Day Eleven

Got cocky. Moved to Level 2.

WOW.

Seriously, Jillian, God never intended for exercise to be carried out while down in push-up position. Insanity.

9/8 – Day Twelve

Shoulders achy. Never held myself up on my arms in my life. Doing it for half of an exercise video? Brutality. Sheer Brutality.

Ali, however, seems to enjoy it more than she enjoyed level one. Already an expert in “Plank Jacks” (Jumping Jacks in the push-up position.) Nice.

9/9-9/11 – Days Thirteen-Fifteen

Ali continues to hone her skills while I continue to try and survive level two and deny the existence of a level 3. At least I understand all of the exercises now, and can manage to make it through MOST of them.

Dinner at my parents. Ali proceeds to call all exercises by name and “school” Gramamma in how to do them.

“This is a Plank Jack. You get down like this….NO GRAMAMMA, not yet. You do this, then this. NOW you can do it.”

“This is a walk-down Push-up, Gramamma. Can you do it?”

Apparently, Grammama can NOT, in fact, do a walk-down push-up. But she did give Ali her own pair of weights so that she could further humiliate me with her toddler exercise skillz.

9/12-9/15 – Days Sixteen-Nineteen

Manage to muddle through. Getting really SICK of Jillian. Seriously sick. But I can’t deny my extremely quickly shaped-up abs. But REALLY SICK OF JILLIAN.

Ali now knows when to encouragingly say “Wow, that’s HARD”, whilst doing it perfectly.

Show-Off.

9/16 – Day Twenty

Pulled my groin muscle. Not sure which of the insidious exercises did it, but in general blame Jillian.

For a funny sounding body part, the groin muscle certainly doesn’t have a sense of humor. It actually makes all of life quite difficult.

Said a secret bedtime prayer that my groin muscle would still be pulled the next day so that I had a legitimate excuse to skip shredding.

9/17 – Day Twenty-One

Dang-IT.

Groin muscle woke up just fine and dandy.

Shredded with an intense and burning desire to shove my weights down Jillian’s throat. Not really sure where all the aggression is coming from – after all, I’m not sore anymore. Maybe Jillian’s meanness is rubbing off on me.

9/18 – Deliverance!!

Being the sacrificial friend I am, I didn’t have a chance to do The Shred because I kept Luke so that Christen could pack for their move, and it just DIDN’T SEEM RIGHT to do an exercise video when being responsible for someone else’s child. Just NOT RIGHT at all.

After all, I could have plank-jacked and accidentally kicked him across the room. Or Ali might’ve if I didn’t.

Thank you Christen Thank you Christen Thank you Christen Thank you Christen Thank you Christen Thank you Christen Thank you Christen Thank you Christen Thank you Christen Thank you Christen!!!

9/19 – Football. No time for Shredding. Darn it.

9/20-9/21 – Life. No time for Shredding. Darn it.

Dear Jillian,

I hate you and I love you all at once. I’ve never felt so conflicted in my affections before, with the possible exception of chocolate. Wow, that’s ironic, isn’t it?

I did your exercise for 21 days, with only one day of break. I wanted to do 30 – I really did – but alas, I am not always as strong as my desires. The only thing I can think about is the way that you yell and scream at the contestants on The Biggest Loser who stop before the last two seconds of what you told them to do. And I know – I have disappointed you immensely. Luckily, as loud and brash as you are, I cannot, however, hear your screaming at me from here.

I DO intend on getting back on your Exercise Wagon of Wretchedness. As soon as life gets out of the way. Oh – and I get back from New York. And get caught up from being out of town. And I may cut down to 3-4 days a week instead of 7.

And again, I can do all this because I can’t hear your screams of malicious anger from here. I like it that way.

But at any rate, I thank you for my new abs, pretty flabby though they may still be. And they ARE guaranteed for 2 years, right?

Sincerely,

Your Dropout-After-21-Days-Failure-Of-A-Student, Rachel.

** Editor’s Note: I lost 4 pounds in 3 weeks, put on a ton of muscle (why can’t muscle weigh less than fat?? Wouldn’t that be a more motivational way of making our bodies?), and I know I lost significant inches, but I don’t measure inches because I stink at being consistent in my measuring technique.

A Southern Lady’s Guide to Proper Table Etiquette

September 21, 2009 Rachel Callahan Parent of the Year, Toddlers: The Experience, Utter Silliness

SOMEBODY who has NO regard for the rigorous fashion in which I am trying to train my daughter into a Southern Belle taught her how to blow bubbles in her milk.

It apparently wasn’t an easy lesson to teach. It took concentration, explanation, and demonstration.

But they did a thorough job of this training. They even showed her that if you blew them gently enough, you could make a Milk Muffintop:

And then, if you stir it around, you can demolish your Milky Overhang so that you can make a new one.
And that these Milk Muffintops are something to be QUITE proud of.

The only evidence that I found of WHO taught her this mischievous little trick is the glass with which they used to demonstrate these valuable tips:
Who’s the Brown Milk drinker around here?!?!?!

Oh.

Attempts in Keeping Our Gully From Being Washed.

September 19, 2009 Rachel Callahan Football and I have a Complicated Relationship, Toddlers: The Experience

Today was mine and Ali’s first day in Tuscaloosa this year. And, on top of that, it was her first time EVER scheduled to have the privilege of actually going into the stadium.

And the 80% chance of rain? And the week’s worth of rain that has already turned Alabama into a state-shaped mud-wrestling pit? Why, that would never curb Chris’ Football enthusiasm. And hey – I’m always up for an adventure, so we set off in the pouring rain, optimistically thinking that it would subside.

We were excited for the day, after we got over the early hour that Chris woke us up:
Okay, not really. He was actually quite merciful on us today. I’m pretty sure that his wake-up call of 7am for an 11:20am kick-off was his most female-friendly-football-day-rise-and-shine ever.

And for that, we applauded him:

This was our first relatively long car trip since potty-training really got serious, so we had to have another first: toddler usage of gas station bathroom.

(shudder.)

There was a doorway with the “men/women” sign on it that I assumed led to a hallway with the separate bathrooms.

I assumed wrong.

I twisted the knob a couple of times, and then was greeted with a very shrill, very rude, very redneck scream to “Back Off I’m IN HERE!!!!”

A few seconds later, Miss Overalls, Steel-Toed Boots, Camo-Ballcap and chew-stuffed cheeks stepped out and glared me AND my toddler (just in case it was Ali that was the shady doorknob villain) and stomped her steel toes away.

Wow. I had no idea that trying the door more than once was such a grievous sin.

Although I was much too scared of what she would do to me if I photographed her, I did get a shot of her hubby arguing with her, also in matching overalls:
Gotta love country gas stations.

At any rate, it POURED rain our entire hour’s drive to Tuscaloosa. We weren’t sure if we would actually be going to a game, or just taking a family car-wash-ride to Tuscaloosa and back, and the latter was looking more likely by the minute.

When we got there, we of course immediately had to go find the little girl’s room AGAIN, and so Ali and I decided to hang out inside for a few minutes:

However, in just a few minutes, it mercifully quit raining, and the sun actually started peeking out, so we went back outside to reconnect with Chris:
Due to the iffy weather that could turn at any second, people in Tuscaloosa were having to make the hard decisions…

Like, “Should I wear the mismatched plastic pants and hate myself, or take the chance of getting my elephant-embroidered prep pants (that I REALLY should hate myself for) wet?”

And the poor sorority girls – oh their dilemmas. They were having to decide between the usual uniform of stilettos-that-are-responsible-for-dozens-of-broken-ankles-after-too-many-smuggled-in-flasks-in-the-stadium, or the more practical but oddly-out-of-place rainboots:

Obviously, Miss Black Dress has her priorities more in order. I hope her ankles survive.

Ali and I epitomized tailgating as we people-watched and visited with Papa (Chris’ Dad)…
And Ali was feeling oddly cuddly, so I of course took advantage of every second of it:
But due to that 11:20 kickoff, tailgating was cut short to take the LOOOONG (with a toddler) walk to the stadium.

Once we got in, Ali was completely enamored by the amount of people in the stadium – she kept pointing out how MANY people were there. She spent a lot of time silently taking it all in:

AND she never let go of her ticket, given to her by Janet, a sweet tailgating neighbor. She was quite proud of it:

We sat in our seats for the first quarter and a half, all the while Ali pleading to go down and see the Elephant. So once the game was quite in hand, we picked up and headed down to meet Big Al before taking an early exit.
Of course, after having BEGGED to see him, she was terrified for her life.

But then, after we left the game, when we asked her what her favorite part was, she lost no time in telling us that it was “meeting the elephant.”

She’s so weird. I love it.

After rescuing her from the grip of the deadly beast, we hung around near the field for a few more minutes and also got some cheerleading-watching in:

She was interested in them, but not nearly as obsessed as I ~~feared~~ thought she might be.

But then, when we were leaving the stadium, Ali discovered her true love practicing their upcoming halftime show:

She quite assuredly told me “When I get to be a big girl, this is what I am going to do.”
She wouldn’t leave until they did, and so when the last “flag girl” was inside the stadium, we managed to pry her away, leaving the stadium in our wake:
And as soon as we got in the car and on the road again. . .

Apparently we were QUITE in God’s favor today.