7 Quick Takes - or not

1. I had this great idea in the middle of the night to write several short posts and front-date them to auto-post next week while I'm gone (and probably won't have time/access to post) and now I can't remember what the idea(s) was that was going to be my Monday post. I hate that.

2. I have been wearing some great new outfits lately and today I went all-out - my hair is blown out, I have on full make-up, I even wore heels, etc. to MOPS. I keep thinking "I should really talk about/show my outfits on my blog" and then I never remember to take a picture. Of course, I gave up on pictures during the last half of 30 for 30, too, so this should be no surprise. But it's one thing to do it for 30 for 30 when you'd seen most of the pieces by that point already - it's something else to talk about it when I don't have anything to show what I'm talking about...

3. I have realized that I don't have enough warm winter clothes for any member of my family (including myself). Unfortunately, I have realized this while packing for a week-long trip to colder temperatures than we've had.

4. I am ignoring calls from my mother today, as I am sick of fighting with her about my trip. I hate this, because my mom is one of my best friends and we typically talk almost daily. I am not angry with her, per se, but I just can't handle it right now. She is stressing me out and I seriously don't need that.

5. I haven't worked out all week. I figure the stress I've been under has effectively raised my heart rate, my back has been killing me all week, and all the running around I'm doing, lugging the kids is more exercise than I had been doing previously (if you look at the week as a whole, not daily, of course.)

6. A friend from MOPS loaned me her portable DVD player to put on in the car for Fuss. I followed her to her home after the meeting today and WOW. She has this FABulous house. The type I dream about. Seriously. Usually, I like my house. (I wish there were 2 or more bathrooms, sure, but overall, I like my house.) But I suddenly felt really inadequate. I mean, this woman is beautiful (inside and out - she is really, truly one of the sweetest people), she is 4 months pregnant (with her 2nd child) and looks better than I have since I was 20 (and even then, I think she probably still looks better than I did at that age), drives a fancy car, has fabulous clothes, is always dressed impeccably, and lives in this gorgeous house on the water... I felt really, truly inadequate and I have no idea why I was comparing my life to hers. Why do we as women do that so often? I mean, my husband isn't likely to look at Misti and say "why can't you look like her? She's more attractive than you." and my kids aren't likely to like her more than me and really, those are really the only opinions that count in my life.

7. I have no idea what to post for the 7th thing today. Here is our family Christmas picture.