Mom vs Mom

Things have been extra busy around here and I feel that I've been struggling to keep up.  My son's soccer season just ended, we're smack in the middle of softball season and weeks full of makeup games, and we also just ended "birthday season".  I am thankful to be done with party planning and execution.  Soon school will be out, softball will be over and our summer will be slow and hot.  There is less than a week until mother's day and I didn't even realize it until today!

I realized it was just around the corner because this popped up in my facebook news feed.

I'm the first commenter in case you forgot that my real name isn't actually Hugh Jass.  The post only irked me a little bit.  The poster is an opinionated expert on everything and usually reeks of hypocrisy.  For instance, she had five baby showers, but society is too materialistic.  It was a friend of the poster that really got me aggravated.

 I understand about having a day to yourself but I don't think Mother's Day is that day. How sad that they wouldn't want to share in it with their families... and we wonder what is going wrong with people today... 

"What is going wrong with people"?  "How sad"?  We're talking about a pseudo holiday that didn't even exist until some time between 1908 and the 1920's.

What I really can't stand is that the poster and all of her righteous friends banded together to trash and place unnecessary guilt on moms who want to take their special day and just spend it with themselves.  The Poster has only been a mom for a few weeks and (I snooped a little) it appears that the friend doesn't even have a kid yet!  Maybe this is why they just can't understand how, even though you love your kids, you just want a day to float through tasks unhampered.  Maybe carry a clutch instead of the giant purse or tote that is usually required when carting your children off to their various functions.  Should employees who love their jobs not take labor day off?  Is that not quality time that should be spent with your wonderful company?

It's your day moms.  Do whatever you want!

-Hugh Jass

Cooking and Counting

It was a busy and restless Easter weekend and we made it back home with plethora of candy.  That pretty much sums it all up.

I'm also on day 2 of counting calories with myfitnesspal.com and it's corresponding android app.  I weighed myself on Sunday with my brother's scale and was 159lbs.  Hopefully I can find my own BMI scale by this coming Sunday so I can keep weekly tabs.  My brother's scale is by apple and because I don't have the app that goes with it, it wouldn't tell me my current BMI.  I probably don't want to know what it is anyway.  I don't enjoy calorie counting.  We make all of our meals, and maybe there is a better way, but right now I'm having to input every ingredient of everything I make.  Like yesterday when my husband whipped up some couscous with cucumber, radish, broccoli, and tomato with a sides of mashed sweet potato and sauteed kale.  That meal was a lot of input!  Right now I'm trying to figure out the calorie count for my home made hummus.  Ugh!  Math!

Who else cooks and counts?  Give me some tips!

-Hugh Jass

It's a Good Friday

No school today!  That means I got to sleep in, right?  WRONG!  Oliver woke up at 6:30.  He never does that!

I ran regularly last week.  I didn't take any gadgets with me whatsoever so I don't know anything of pace or distance.  I haven't done anything as of yet this week.  Except for some push ups.  I want killer arms and a hot collar bone and shoulder area.  So even if I'm fat, pictures of my cleavage and shoulders will look amazing.

Here's the deal, and get ready for some irony... I don't like blogging very much anymore.  Well, I still like enough to do it every now and again.  Like right now.  I really have to be in the mood.  I can't believe I used to do this every day.  I least of all like blogging about running.  Blek!  I also stopped reading a lot of blogs.  You all got fast and accomplished while I've struggled to get back my mere 11 minute pace.

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and that's all I've got.  I sat here for 30 minutes trying to write just one more paragraph, but every sentence came out as total useless crap.  And now that I look at it, this whole post is giving a very negative vibe which contradicts the title I had pre-chosen.

Maybe sometime in the next decade I can get my blogging mojo back.  Or my blojo (ha! Blow Jo, TWSS) back.

-Hugh Jass

Where I've Been: Rt 66, the rest of it

I'm not sure now what day I left off of.  I know I was in our hotel in Flagstaff when I made the last post.  After that we were at a friends house, then a Wigwam, then back into a Marriot in Amarillo, but I didn't feel like blogging that night.

The morning we left Flagstaff, we headed straight toward the Grand Canyon not too far away.  It was an amazing sight to see, as you may have suspected or already know.  The vastness was mind blowing and breath taking.  And to think years ago, when people were just beginning to explore the western expanse of this nation, the poor guys who met the rim of this canyon on horse back!  What could they have thought?  A slew of swear words, I'm sure.

We didn't stay there long.  There is only so much peering over the edge you can do.  Now, if I could go down in that canyon I could stay there roaming around for a year.

We ate some left over pizza in the car and then we were off to our friend's house in Vegas.  We didn't get there until dark so the first thing we did was make a quick drive up of the strip so the kids could see the lights.  They're favorite things were the Circus Circus clown, the Excalibur castle, and the pirate ships at the... whatever hotel has the pirate ships.  Alaurie also thought it was cool when she saw a girl "dressed as a bird" (show girls).

We stayed two nights with our friends, an old coworker of my husband's, her husband and their teenage daughter.  We spent one whole day in Vegas seeing the botanical gardens at The Belagio, showing the kids where grown ups lose all their money, and then walking around Freemont St.

Poppys

Butterfly sanctuary

Linda and Brad

Freemont St

I love the old part of Vegas

We wore ourselves out pretty good in Vegas but it was a great time.  Thursday morning was a jam packed day of travel.  We left Linda's house late in the morning after a good long sleep and headed back toward New Mexico.  Our first stop on the way out of Nevada was the Hoover Dam.

The Dam

The dam bridge

My dam sign

I'm not sure what my daughter's dam sign is.

Brad and Braden have the same dam sign.

Maybe this is my daughter's dam sign?

Still on Thursday, I'm not even going to say the name of the next town where we stopped.  It was awesome though.  Take a look at these pictures and find the ways that this town has set an entire scene.

Notice the truck?

All painted on the side of this wall.

My new favorite picture of my little Oli.

Our stop was an overnight in Holbrook AZ.  Staying in this Wigwam Motel was the absolute highlight of my trip.  It's old, and albeit kind of ugly, but it's clean, warm, and welcoming.  This place transports you to another time.  Old cars line the parking lot as if they're staying at motel as well, and as you walk the parking lot you can smell the wood burning stove in the front office.  I wonder what it might have been like in the 50's to be cruising down the mother road, looking for a place to rest, when this cluster of tee pees pops up to greet you.  This place, even with it's age and limited amenities, was so much cooler than the chain hotels we had already been staying in.

So I say to myself, "This looks like a prime location for a facebook profile pic photo shoot."  And then I say to Brad, "Brad! Take my picture on this car!".

 And that's how I became America's Next Top Model.

check in

Next stop, back to Amarillo!  We had some great steaks Friday night at a place called The Stockyard cafe.  We met some friends there that we hadn't seen in a while and ended our vacation with good food and conversation.

We had great time on our retro, low budget vacation.  If we do it again (I want to) I want to stay at all of the little historic motels instead of the chains we used (we had points) this time.

-Hugh Jass

Where I've been: Rt 66 day 2

We woke up in the beautiful, colorful city of Albuquerque.  We checked out of our hotel, made sure the car was cleared of trash, and then took Rt 66 out of town.

This is the place we ate at the night before

I love the colors!

The next few town we hit are kind of a blur.  Grants was the first.  We stopped and had a bit to eat there.   Then we came through Gallup.  Both of these places were neat and still had decent little economies.  But when I look at the pictures I don't remember which was which.

This could be one of my favorite signs.

I think this one is famous, maybe.

We had to do a bit of off roading at times, just to stay on Rt 66.

We saw more cool stuff just off the highway.  Like these pueblos.

 And this cave-ish thing surrounded by little Indian shops.  It was a bit of a tourist trap.

The highlight of our day was going into the petrified forest national park.  Trees turned to stone are always a big hit with the kids, and the painted desert was magnificent.  While were there we also saw some ancient hieroglyphs.  The largest concentration of hieroglyphs in... eh-hem... the slkdjfl... the largest concentration in somewhere.

The road through the park is old Rt 66.  It is one of those rare times when you can't see the interstate anywhere, the road is small and slow, and for a minute you feel like you've gone back in time.

Pictures never do anything justice.

Tree rocks!

More rock stumps!

We cut back through Holbrook and ended our day in Flagstaff.  We ordered pizza from a local place that delivers, swam in the indoor pool and settled in for a less-than-good nights sleep.  Oliver has n't delt with being away from home very well.  Or it could be that he's sleeping too much in the car during the day.  But a free continental breakfast always wakes me up and gets me ready for the day.  Have I ever mentioned that I love free stuff?

Good morning from Flagstaff!  We're off to the Grand Canyon!

-Hugh Jass