Hello Blog World!

Yes, I haven’t been around MSJ for a bit.  Here are the recent headlines of the summer life of the Crosby clan.

46 Year Old Housewife Drops 80 Pounds:  Wise choices for health over the last year have produced remarkable results for this average housewife, who is now above average in weight loss success. (Yes, that’s me, but didn’t that sound headliney?)

Water Shortage in Desert Leaves Dying Remains:  This simply means that Rick isn’t watering the backyard grass this summer and it’s all dead.  Why is that headline news, you ask?  Because the wiener dog likes to roll in the dead grass and then come in and roll on the used-to-be-clean carpet.  This is a new cleaning issue this summer that we have never faced before.  It is a constant source of time and energy expended on STUPID stuff. 2012 will go down in the Crosby History Book as the summer of the dead grass. (Hopefully not of the dead dog!)

Summer Movie Fun is Proving Successful:  Yes, I bought the summer fun pack of $7 movie tickets again.  So far, I haven’t seen any of the theatrical selections!  So it’s ALL fun for me!  This week is Mr. Popper’s Penguins.  If you have been an MSJ reader for several years, you will recall how we tortured our children with a sound recording of Mr Popper…. so I’m looking forward to finding out all the information we missed from the skipping CD… IF they followed the book.

Full Time Work is Stressful:   Hahahahaha!  This one makes me laugh.  Our 18-year-old, soon to be college-bound daughter, is working “full time”….. HARDLY!  I think in her first two weeks of “full time” she put in one, maybe two 8 hour days.  This is exhausting!  Never has she been asked to do unpleasant tasks for EIGHT straight hours!  Well, except for school and chores!  She has never taken so many naps.  She came home after a grueling six hours of scanning and filing files to exclaim, “I cannot imagine working eight hours a day, doing something you don’t like FOR FORTY YEARS!?!”  hahahah… real life, baby.  This is it!  See why we have tried to steer you to a career that suits your interests and talents????

Unpaid Worker Scores Big:  This is the story of my life.  I finally found a part-time opportunity that allows me to help others and make cash at the same time.  It is the exact antithesis of my daughter’s job.  In ten hours per week, I’m helping people lose weight and get healthy, get off their meds and live longer!  And they pay me!  It reminds me of when my husband started his initial job as a pilot and he couldn’t believe he got paid to fly a plane!  I handed my first check to my husband, who has been the primary bread earner in this household for 16 years, and he spat out in astonishment, “This is the most money you’ve made in …..   Y E A R S !”   haha!  God provides!

Lagging Teacher Delivers for Hopeful Students:  This simply means that I finally got my American History grades done and sent to my high school students whom I haven’t seen in 6 weeks!  Better late than never.  My child was the only who needed the grade for a transcript, so it’s all good.

Enjoy the Fourth of July, America’s birthday!  God bless America!  Land of the brave and FREE!  yah, baby.

The First Time

The first time I remember realizing that I was not a slim girl was in Mrs. Johnson’s third grade class at P.A. Walsh Elementary School in Morgan Hill, California.  I was EIGHT years old, for heaven’s sake.  For some reason… maybe we were learning how to measure things??… she weighed and measured everyone in the class.  AND she wrote the results on a L A R G E chart for all to see how they measured up.  Here we are in all of our 1974 glory.

That’s me in the back row…second tallest…with the tasteful mustard-yellow sweater dress …. without the glasses.  On the larger side of the scale is where I fell… heavily.  Pun intended.  The number 101 sticks out in my mind.  I weighed 101 pounds.  The only other kid in the WHOLE blinkin’ class that also had three digits on the chart was Raul.  He’s the kid in the back row on the far left…. we never said it aloud… but in our minds he was the fat kid in class…. the chart didn’t lie.  We all liked Raul and would never hurt his feelings, but kids do notice extremes and differences…. and triple digits on the chart. Raul weighed in at 103.  Slightly more than me.  Me and Raul…. the only kids over 100 pounds in Mrs. Johnson’s class. Did the other kids consider me the fat girl?  It never dawned on me until this moment. I don’t know. Hopefully they simply considered me “good German stock”… without a trace of German heritage.

Ok, but I WAS TALL for my age!  Height counts for more weight, right?  Right!  And our size didn’t dictate who are friends were at that age.  The girls I remember sharing tootsie-pops with while we swung on the bars were Johanna (pink shirt, top right), and Michelle (in a dress with white socks, front row).  If my fading memory serves me correct, the three of us enjoyed spending time with the three boys to the right of the teachers, Tony, Frankie and Jesse.  I could probably pick up each one of them and swing them around over my head.  I was tall AND strong.

The first time…. and sadly not the last time… I remember weighing more than everyone in the room.  Thankfully, that is over now.  Forever!