Yeah, I like it too

I love Halloween. I think I like Halloween more now then when I was a kid. I love dressing my kids up. For the past few years I've tried to be creative. I've made several costumes. This year I have no idea what to do. The kids keep changing their minds about what they want to be. I have a feeling their costumes won't be my best work this year. I don't feel any creative juices flowing. I am just not in the Halloween spirit. It doesn't help that our house won't sell. My neighbor has had two people come look at her house, and neither came to ours. Argh...I think I may just resurrect some old costumes,

Here are some pictures of the costumes I made from past Halloweens.

So I have started exercising again. I've been doing Power 90. It's a workout video. Here's a short description of it:

Power 90 is an accelerated fitness and fat burning program which you follow step-by-step for 90 days to transform and reshape your body. It includes: Personal training videos which alternate resistance training with cardiovascular exercise and stretching. Complete workout in around 40 minutes. This program utilizes a combination of aerobics, kickboxing, power yoga, and weight training (with dumbbells or resistance cables) for the best all-around training program ever created -- all in less than 45 minutes a day!

I've done this workout off and on for the past 2 years. I've never made it the whole 90 days. It's pretty hard. I 've been doing it for four days and it has already kicked my butt. I've come to a few conclusions having to do with exercise;

#1: Push ups are evil. They are pure torture.
#2: Lunges and squats are ok the day you do them. The next day they are pure
torture.
#3: Exercise is hard.
#4: I feel better after I have exercised.(no surprise there)
#5: I am way out of shape.

My goal is to make it through the 90 days.

Talking of torture, I'd like to post a quote from one of my favorite movies:

Westley:
"To the pain," means the first thing you lose will be your feet below the ankles, then your hands at the wrists, next your nose.

Prince Humperdinck:
And, then my tongue I suppose. I killed you too quickly the last time; a mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.

Westley:
I wasn't finished. The next thing you lose will be your left eye, followed by the right .

Prince Humperdinck:
And, then my ears, I understand. Let's get on with it.

Westley:
Wrong! Your ears you keep, and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish, every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out: "Dear God, what is that thing?" will echo in your perfect ears. That is what "to the pain" means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery, forever.

From: The Princess Bride

I just finished reading Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, for the second time. What an awesome book. Ben got me hooked on Salinger by having me read Catcher in the Rye (many years ago). This book is all about the dialouge. I don't think I have ever read another author who writes dialouge so well. Through the dialouge he paints each character so vividly.

Even though the characters themselves seem so unrelatable to me, I somehow feel so close to them. I don't quite know how to describe it. You guys will just have to go read it (if you haven't yet).

Here's a little blurb from it;
I love this, I laughed out loud when I read it:

"She was gone about five minutes. When she returned, she had the particular facial expression that her eldest daughter, Boo Boo, had once described as meaning one of only two things: that she had just talked with one of her sons on the telephone or that she had just had a report on the best authority, that the bowels of every single human being in the world were scheduled to move with perfect hygienic regularity for a period of one full week."

School started for Elise and Jake yesterday. Ben took the day off (like he usually does),so we decided to take Claire out to lunch to celebrate. Claire is so much better when she is by herself. She is perfectly happy to play all by herself. She harldy ever whines about having nothing to do, or nothing to play with.

I'm so happy school has started. I don't know how some moms do home schooling. I think I would go insane. Now I need to think of some good activities to do with Claire. She has two more years left till kindergarten. I'd like to start working on her alphabet skills. I'd like her to be reading by next fall. My original goal was this fall, but that didn't happen. (mostly due to my laziness)

Another goal I have is to start exercising again. I have done pretty awful for the past month. If only it wasn't so hard to get up early. I am not a morning person. I need to eat healthier as well. I wish I was one of those people who have no problem eating healthy every day. I wish I had no desire to eat cheese, fried food, fried cheese, chocolate, ice cream,.....

I wish I had a little cheerleading squad that would materialize for me every time I made a healthy eating decision or every time I exercised. Maybe that would motivate me.

Gooooooooo Cyndi! You ate those veggies!! Yippity Doo!!!