I hope you enjoyed these pictures from a family trip to the Museum of North Idaho, located in Coeur d’Alene. Even though the Museum of North Idaho is small, it contains quite a bit of history from the area, as you can see.
Museum of North Idaho in Pictures
August 8th, 2012Ridiculously Difficult to Lose Belly Fat
August 5th, 2012
So my sister is getting married, and she chooses bridesmaid dresses meant for an 18-year-old. I’m, of course, in my 40’s, and I had no problem with my self-concept until I had to fit into the stupid thing. I heard it ripping. Oh, yes, I forgot to say that measuring myself to order it online was no happy picnic in the park either. Does anyone have measurements like that? I mean, without plastic surgery. And to think that I finally came to a point in my life where I was comfortable in my skin, and I believed I was attractive to my husband, life has to throw in a monkey wrench like this. Sigh.
Zipping the dress up the side, I heard it ripping. But then I checked, and it wasn’t ripped after all. Good, because shelling out $100 for a dress that I will never wear again shouldn’t happen twice in one week. My best friend told me that I should have ordered “up,” and then have it taken in. Right, like that’s another hundred dollars probably. Because the ideal hourglass figure doesn’t allow for reality, not one bit. Either the dress would look like a deflated balloon up top, or it would have to be skin tight on my belly and behind. I chose the latter.
“I have a big pooch,” I said, and my husband agreed, who (bless his heart) was only telling the truth. I wasn’t hurt by the comment. I looked way uglier in the dress than I did naked. Yes, my pooch looked exaggerated by the dress.
I’ve given birth four times. My body is great. I do Zumba. I’m fine. I don’t particularly want to go on a diet just to make an ugly dress appear less ugly. Yes, I’m going to back up and say the dress is ugly and not me. I’m gorgeous. Yes. I suppose I should lose the pooch, though…
I restricted calories. Then for some reason I wanted foods that were bad for me just because I couldn’t have them. I’m like, wow. I don’t normally like cake. Back when I lived like a normal person, I skipped the cake and didn’t feel like I was depriving myself. Now the cake was sitting there like a commercial, you know, looking way better than real life. And then you eat it and feel yucky. Your stomach actually feels disgusting. If I wasn’t on a diet, my stomach would have felt fine. But somehow my brain is now telling my stomach that it did something wrong. I exercise longer to do penance.
The other thing I did was crunches. So I did like a bazillion crunches. Every day. I made sure my belly was in a constant state of hurting. And then my belly looked WORSE. I asked some women at my Zumba class, “What’s up with that?” They said that if you do lots of crunches, it pushes your belly fat forward, so you look worse. Oh, that’s nice.
The wedding is in less than two weeks. I’ve lost five pounds. I have no idea if my belly is any flatter, but at least I tried, right?
A Day at the Lake
August 1st, 2012
Yesterday we spent a day at the lake. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and the kids played in the warm sand and splashed around in the water. Alan took a half day off work, and we just sat on the beach. It was nice to just sit and do nothing.
The kids made sculptures using the sand, sticks, and seaweed. They dug for water, and then they decided to bury their little brother, who actually wanted to be buried in the sand. He giggled as the sand was built up around him.
Another one of my sons enjoyed playing with the mud that was made by the wet sand. I wonder if beach sand could work as a mud treatment? If so, I should have had my kids dump mud on me, since I already felt relaxed, as if I were at a spa. Instead, I mostly just watched my kids play, or I lay down on a towel to rest while listening to the sounds of the water lapping on the shore. It was certainly a relaxing day at the lake…
Paint by Number
July 31st, 2012
You would think that paint by number would decrease creativity in children, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. My son learned how to shade horses by doing a paint by number. We bought the kit at a craft supply store. The thin canvas has an outline of the picture, with numbers inside each area. The number corresponds to a color. For example, number 8 is light blue. You go ahead and paint each area the correct colors until you finish the painting.
Later on I noticed that my son was drawing horses freehand. When he colored in the horses with colored pencils, he shaded the mane in the same way that he did for the paint by number. So his artistic skill increased because of the paint by number. Now the beautiful painting of horses can be seen in the hallway of our home. (Actually, another son painted the horses in my hallway. We gave the collection of horses as a gift to Grandma, who owned horses for years. You can see one of our horse paint by numbers in the YouTube video “Hallway Art Gallery.”)
