Zumba!

Simply put, I'm a bit of a couch potato.

No, I take that back. I don't shy away from active things, but I prefer them to be activities themselves. I grew up water skiing and swimming, riding bikes and ice skating, playing softball... one of my favorite Christmas memories is the year the entire family got cross-country skis and that became a family activity for awhile.

Even though I know I need to exercise, talk to me about going to the gym or running or something and I can feel my shoulders go into an automatic shrug. It's just not all that appealing. (H, on the other hand, gets grouchy if he can't work out at least every other day.) So I was a little bit surprised to find myself at a local dance studio recently with a few friends to give Zumba a try.

I was even more surprised to find - I think I like it! Latin and international music, combined with (mostly) easy to follow moves - Zumba keeps my heart rate up. I feel good and energized when the hour is over. Even better, our energetic instructor is low-key and very adaptable and encouraging. I like the reassurance that if I'm having trouble with a move to, "Just shake it! Move to the beat! Have fun!"

Me and my lack of rhythm may have actually found a workout routine. Yay!

Bits O' Grace

1. Fall days that reach 67 degrees!
2. Mommy friends from my now, sadly, defunct Family Network. You ladies save my sanity...
3. Zumba! So refreshing to get moving...
4. Early morning snuggles with the four year old.
5. Testing myself on Cash Cab trivia.

Grace-Full

1. Pumpkin Whoopie Pies!
2. Snuggling into Daniel when he came to our room and climbed into bed in the early am.
3. The bluest sky.
4. The crunch of leaves underfoot on a crisp day.
5. Tex-Mex shepherd's pie followed by a chaser of limeade.

November seems like the perfect month to revisit Grace-full Mondays, inspired by 365 Days of Grace.

Underwater Adventure

Our fishy saga continues. One of the two guppies went belly-up awhile back. I've been content to sit back with the one fish, so imagine my shock when there was a new crop of little fry several weeks later. Remembering the disappearance of the last batch of babies, we scooped about a dozen out into a little bowl that sits on the counter in the kitchen. The ones remaining in the tank seemed to disappear after a bit.

Peering into the tank a week or so ago I discovered at least four more babies. Either they were very good at hiding from the carnage, or Mama Guppy had a few more!

Can a fish be perpetually pregnant? How long are guppy pregnancies anyway? I've been thinking of reintroducing the babies as they get a bit larger and hopefully some will make it. In the meantime I'm just grateful that I haven't had to explain to my little man why the fish he named Daniel keeps having offspring!

Boo

So first my Yahoo email address got hacked. Highly embarrassing, and many apologies to anyone who has had any email contact with me whatsoever.

Now in the midst of this past week of single parenting with H out of town, I come down with yet again The Cough That Won't Quit. I was checking out at a store this morning and could hardly get a breath for the coughing. The poor clerk was sympathetic, but I have visions of her sanitizing everything as soon as I walked out the door.

Sigh.

This week has been hard. I'm off to hug my pillow and fantasize about ghost cupcakes landing on my doorstep.

The Complaint Department

So we've been doing this potty-training thing, and it's going swimmingly during the daytime. We're still working on the whole dry at night thing, and so I popped a Pull-up on Daniel the other evening before getting his PJs on. He proceeded to get a rather odd look on his face, and start itching at first one leg and then the other. I finally peeked, only to see strips of what looked almost like packing tape on the leg elastics of the Pull-up.

Huh? And I've actually pulled two out of this package with the same problem. Where in the past, I might have simply thrown away defective product I am going to sit down and write a (nicely worded) complaint email to Huggies/Kimberly-Clark.

The Internet is a great tool for this. Where in the past, the complaint process could be laborious and time-consuming Internet communication greatly shortens the distance between company and consumer. I've had two instances over the past several years, both food-related, where I felt a complaint was in order. I bought a tub of margarine once, only after a knife-full or two I discovered a hollowed out air bubble in the center. Enough of the margarine was gone, that I felt I had not gotten what I paid for. In another case I bought some cookies-n-cream ice cream. Got it home, to find two tiny cookie bits in a sea of vanilla. Again, nothing wrong with the ice cream - but certainly not what I'd paid for. Both times, after inquiring emails to the companies, I received apologies and coupons for free product. Over and above that, I had the feeling of being heard and certainly a stronger inclination to give these companies' products another try.

I'm off to start writing.

From the too cute files...

Daniel gets into a lot of play-acting: superheroes of all kinds, firemen, policemen. A park near us put in loads of new play structures recently, one of which is shaped like a fire truck. The whole area is peppered with bells that the kids can ring by stomping on them. He spent a good portion of our afternoon there yesterday stomping and ringing and yelling "Fire!" and then racing for the fire truck.

After watching some cop shows with Daddy, Daniel started talking about how he's going to: "Put handcups on you!"

Handcups. It's too cute! I haven't the heart to correct it.