Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder

The first time I found a gray hair it was kind of funny. But gray hairs are like top forty songs . . . ok at first but repetition gets old and you find yourself wondering why! Why was such a thing created!?
I have found more gray hairs in the last week than I have in the last year. They seem to be reproducing faster than the dust bunnies behind my computer. I used to tease my mom when she would pluck the little culprits from her head with a pair of tweezers: "If you keep pulling them you're gonna be bald!" Ha ha, ya now it is not so funny and I need to take my own advice.

But today my age hit me like a ton of Botox. We bought a Slip N'Slide yesterday, and my daughter really wants me to play on it with her. The problem? I have not tried on my swimming suit since before I was pregnant with Devin. While I have lost most of my post baby weight, let's just say things have uhhh, shifted. I put my fear aside and tried the suit on. The botton fits fine, but the top, now that is a different story. The girls were not exactly fitting comfortably in the spandex!

Ok, small blow to my self esteem. Not too bad... I can handle it. Then I go into the bathroom to put sunscreen on my face. That's when I saw it. An extension of the Grand Canyon on the left side of my face just below my cheek. I have never seen a wrinkle that deep before. But it wasn't just that, it was the suddeness of it! Where did it come from? Did the gray hairs talk you into this, you little annoying one? I swear it was not there last week, now suddenly it looks like The Joker has paid me a visit and decided to turn me into his likeness.

Now I have a cunundrum. I was going to go to the store to buy a new swimming suit that would keep the twins confined, but maybe I should get some face cream instead. Seriously, this thing can be seen from space.

It all hit me then. I am going to be thirty this year. I am not young anymore. I have all these clothes that I have been saving . . . thinking someday maybe I will be able to wear them again. There was once a time when you could see my abs! Yes, I had a six pack! Now I have stretch marks, my butt jiggles, one boob is bigger than the other, my back hurts and I am rarely awake past 10 p.m. 9 a.m. is like noon because I have already been up for hours. All I need now is to start vacuming my lawn and telling people driving by my house to slow down!

Bye bye skull and cross bone string bikini. (It is really cute, by the way) hello swiw suit cover up!

I must admit, it was quite the downer for a few hours. I went to Freddies to purchase the before mentioned swim suit, and saw these teenage girls with perfect little bodies that have never been through a pregnancy, let alone two! While shopping I kept stumbling across sizes 0, 3, 4, and I thought to myself, "who the hell wears a size 0?" After all, if such a creature did exist she has long been blown away by the fierce Idaho wind.

I finally found a swim suit (Do you have any idea how much these things cost! $68! Is spandex an endargered commodity? Damn!) I compromised. It is a two piece, and the back is open, but the front comes down in a sort of skirt form down to the bottoms part, so my girls are reigned in and the stretch marks are not flashing everybody.

I talked to my hubby later about finding a small canyon on my face, and he was quick to remind me, as the great husband he is, that he too is getting older. He always tells me that he has never been attracted to those super skinny girls. Who wants to hug a skeleton? And that he thinks I am beautiful the way I am. He has a way of putting things into perspective for me. It is just something in the way he puts things . . . swoon!

I slapped myself out of it (mentally of course!) and was able to tell myself that, ya, I am older, but hey, it is a part of life. I would never want to be 20, 21, 22 again. Those were some of the worst years of my life. I have strecth marks because I have two beautiful babies, and I would not trade them for cellulite, stretch marks, gray hair or aches and pains in the world. Those teenage girls I saw at the store think they have everything figured out, but they have no idea what love is!

I am wiser, I am smarter and I am happier than I have ever been. If life gets better with age, then bring on the birthdays!

At least I can still fit into the earings I wore in high school.

The end.

Do crazy people know they are crazy?

I love psychology. I love to watch people and figure out what makes them tick. Or not tick. Do crazy people know they are stark raving mad? The guy who has collected empty beer cans for 50 years thinks it is normal, but to a so called "normal" person, this is nuts. Have you ever tried looking at the other side?

I love watching those shows . . . Hoarders, The OCD Project, Intervention . . . (on the rare occasions when I can actually watch TV). Many people are fascinated by those shows, the number of them that exist prove that. But why? Part of it is the train wreck mentality; you just can't help but watch, but a bigger part of it, I think, is that we can all relate to the people in those shows, even if just a little bit. They make us all realize how close to insanity we all are at any given moment or on a day. Those people were not born that way, little triggers in their life caused them to start collecting or drinking or whatever.

Our minds are dangerously fragile. We all walk around thinking we are immune to the problems and vices that affect other people.

There are thousands of books and people with degrees, but no one can ever completely understand the human mind because there are so many different triggers.

What's your vice?
Crazy is subjective.