WAKE UP!

It was 5:00 a.m.

She hated being woken up before her alarm was scheduled to sound; but on this morning nothing had happened to cause her to awaken early - no loud clap of thunder, no big bang, no children standing over her, nothing... So why was she awake? No, not only awake... WIDE awake.

After several unsuccessful minutes of lying completely still, surrounded by total darkness, listening to the silence in a desperate attempt to recapture that extra hour and a half of treasured sleep, she popped one eye open to glance around the room, catching a glimpse of the expensive clothes hanger in the middle of the bedroom floor, and that's when she heard it...

Listening to her hearts desire - the conversations of her mind when she had those precious few moments alone. The ones where her secret wishes to make a change would come to the forefront, but she didn't know how or when she would find the time to do what she knew needed to be done.

God's whisper.

He had woken her up early enough to get up and exercise before beginning her day.

"Okay, God." She silently argued, "I hear you; but why, oh why would you get me up at 5:00?"

"That's too early and I'm still really tired. How about I make you a deal?" She pleaded, "You let me go back to sleep this morning and try again in a couple of days - but how about we make it 5:30 next time, m'kay?" And she rolled back over, fluffing her pillow a few times and finally drifted back off to sleep.

Several weeks have passed since that original conversation with Him and she still had not gotten up any earlier in an attempt to get that morning workout in; BUT, she did recently join a gym with complete resolve to make herself attend at least three times a week.

Fast forward to yesterday morning, when the puppy woke her up at 4:30 a.m. to go outside.

If that's not something you're familiar with, let me just tell ya: standing outside in 40 degree temperatures ,while you wait for a puppy to piddle, is a sure fired way to get your blood pumpin in the morning and make it extremely difficult to settle back in for a few more hours of sleep - but somehow she managed.

I was telling a friend at work about my conversation with God the other morning, when he got me up at 5:00, and how I had made a deal with Him to try back in a few more days. So, when I told her of this morning's pre-dawn activities she so kindly reminded me of the deal I had made just the other day - stating that I had PROMISED Him I would make an attempt to get up and exercise.

"Yes, that's true," I admitted. "I did say I would get up and exercise the next time He got me up early, but I distinctly recall telling Him 5:30."

Well, NEVER say that God doesn't listen because this morning - despite the fact that I have been going to the gym and working out all week long, including last night which is why I was so wired I didn't get to sleep until well after midnight - He again had the puppy wake me up early.

And while it was 5:00 when I got up to let her outside, guess what time it was when I came back in....

Yep, you got it! It was 5:30 a.m. (almost on the dot).

I had no excuses left. That was the deal I had made, I was wide awake and although I could almost hear the comfort of my warm and cozy bed calling to me, I had no choice; I had to get my butt up on the elliptical and work out.

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Huh? What? Who's there??

Oh, so sorry about that...that was my face hitting the keyboard as I fell asleep telling this story.

Guess who's going to sleep goooood tonight?!?!?

Moral of the story??

Be careful what you promise - He has a way of making you keep them ;) I'm so thankful He's patient with me :)

The Class from Hell

You may recall that I recently signed up for sadomasochism joined a gym.

On day one I told you I got my ass kicked in a body pump class.

Seriously, after that first workout, my legs were like limp noodles. For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to get the thirteen year old to drive us home because my leg was shaking so bad I couldn't maneuver the clutch.

Thank goodness the gym is right around the corner from the house - I drove home that night praying that I wouldn't catch a red light for fear I wouldn't be able to get out of first gear.

Day two wasn't so bad. It was orientation night, I came home and got changed to go meet the personal trainer. She took down all my statistics (weight, body fat, BMI) the bitch and then she took me around to each piece of equipment and showed me how to set it up - seat height, how much weight to lift, the proper way to lift the weights, etc. Afterwards, I jumped on the elliptical and got in about a 45 minute workout.

Saturday morning (day three) I got up early and went to the gym doing both the weights and 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Monday night, the teen and ol' pro go to the gym. On the way there, they talk about what they're going to do: Sugar decides she's going to check out the cycling class and I was going to repeat my Saturday routine (weights and elliptical).

Well, for those of you who've ever gone to a gym you will know, Monday's are always the busiest nights at the gym and everything seemed to be taken so I decided instead to join Sugar in the spin class.

About twenty minutes into the workout, I came to the conclusion that the instructor lady was trying to kill me.

I soooo couldn't hang.

Finally, I quietly gathered up my aching butt and my burning thighs and took them to something that I knew I could do - yep, the elliptical (my favorite!)

Spin class my ass - HA! - more like purgatory!

In other news: I'm SO proud of Sugar - who stuck it out for the entire workout (and survived)! She's awesome!

Signing up for Sadomasochism

Not one to make New Years resolutions, she did tell herself that she would make an effort to attain a couple of personal goals in the year 2010.

The first goal she wanted to work towards was putting aside more time for one of her favorite pastimes - blogging. While it is still only January, she has made an honest effort to delve back in to her love of story telling and hopefully, as time ticks on, she will be able to continue with a schedule that allows her the necessary time for this passion.

The other thing that she has told herself she would like to accomplish is to get back into shape. Realistically speaking, she knows there are two things that will have to happen in order to achieve this goal: 1) keep her mouth shut - aka step away from the food - and 2) get off her butt - aka exercise.

Today she took the first step towards reaching her goal.

Today she joined the gym.

And today... she got her ass kicked!!

After signing up for sadomasochism joining the gym, she went back up there for her first - and quite possibly her last - Body Pump class.

Did the instructor not notice how big she was??

Did she not take one look at her and equate all that girth to the fact that this girl was most likely out of shape??

I'm not sure she did, because that woman tried her damnedest to kill me!

Apparently, I enjoy torment because my plan for tomorrow - provided I don't wake up dead from this afternoon's torture chamber session workout - is to go back for more... *sigh*

Lord, give me strength (to get out of the bed in the morning and be willing to do this all over again). Amen.

Cardboard Pizza?

It had been a long week:

Still getting back into the swing of things after the holidays. A spittle of snow had fallen over the city - closing the schools - with two day highs reaching a whopping 7 to 8 degrees.

Friday had finally arrived!

Sugar called to ask what they were going to do for supper. "Can we go out tonight?" she asked.

Way too cold to even think about getting out and trying to wrap up all of her work before heading home for the weekend, she didn't have time to give much thought to dinner.

"No baby, it's too cold to go anywhere tonight." She said to the disappointed teenager. "I'll think about it and figure something out before I get home."

Sometime between hanging up the phone and arriving home, pizza popped into her mind.

It's quick... it's easy... it's perfect!

Now on to the next important quandary: what kind of pizza would it be?

Pizza Hut - Nah

Domino's - No

Papa John's - Not tonight

What then??

Freezer section - Kroger - DiGiorno (three meats, stuffed crust pizza)

Mm-mm! Just as good as any of those others and cost less too.

That decided it - Pizza it was!

She calls Sugar and tells her to preheat the oven, then heads to Kroger to pick up their dinner. She comes home, unwraps it and pops it into the preheated oven - reading the directions, she sets the timer for...

What?? 6 minutes...

"Wow!" she thought to herself as she heads towards the restroom to change out of her work clothes, "I knew it didn't take long but that's remarkably fast."

Not giving it another thought, she changes clothes and the timer soon goes off. As she heads back towards the kitchen, she starts thinking to herself, "there's no way that pizza can be ready this quickly."

"Wait a minute." She says to Sugar, trying to stop her before she gets too far into cutting the slices, "is that pizza really done? "

"Yes," Sugar replies, already having sliced it into fours.

Looking at the pizza, she clearly sees that it is not done so she picks up the package and reads the instructions again:

Bake 25 - 27 minutes.

Where in the hell did she get six minutes from?

Oh well, back into the oven it goes.

21 minutes later, the pizza is really done and as they begin slicing....

Have you ever heard the term, "It tastes like cardboard?"

Yeah?!?!

Well, they discover where that saying came from when they realized that they had cooked the

pizza.... *drum roll please* ....

on-the-cardboard!

And this, folks, is why I leave the cooking to the thirteen year old.

Brrr - Who left the freezer door open?

I went to bed in Mississippi and woke up in Alaska.

Who left the freezer door open?

What is up with this weather??

Never, in my history of living here - which has been all of my life - can I recall us ever having temperatures in the single digits (and that's not even accounting for the wind chill factor).

I hate cold weather!

My feet have been freezing all - day - long!

It's cold at the office on a regular winter day, where the highs are in the 40's and the lows are in the 30's. Can you imagine what it's like on a day like today??

My manager and I have to take turns using our heaters because if we both run them together, we blow a fuse - we learned that lesson the hard way (a couple of times). Then we get fussed at because technically they tell us we aren't supposed to have heaters.

Well, if it weren't freezing in there all the time, we wouldn't need them now would we?? You think I could convince the company to buy us all a Snuggie?

So today, I worked with a blanket over my lap, a scarf around my neck and at one point I even had gloves on. Can you imagine trying to type with gloves on your hands?? Let me just tell ya, it ain't that easy.

In my next life, I want to be a bear so I can sleep through this whole miserable season. Grrr!

Who woulda thunk the day would ever come where I would long for temperatures in the 40's?!? Heck, at this point I would even take the 30's...

The Gentle Cycle

We've all had them, moments when we've put the cereal box in the refrigerator or the milk in the cabinet...

It was five a.m. when she stumbled out of bed, tripping over the five year old's shoes on her way to stop that constant buzzing sound, coming from the direction of her dresser.

Slapping at the annoying culprit, she finally gets the alarm turned off and wanders, sleepy eyed, into the bathroom for her morning shower.

After a few minutes of unsuccessfully working to get a good lather in her hair, and with the cobwebs of sleep still firmly rooted in her brain, she begins to think about the order of things while taking an inventory off all her shower products: shampoo bottle, check; men's shampoo, check; Gillette facial scrub and wash, check; children's shampoo and conditioner, check; feminine wash, check; All Clear facial scrub, check; bar of soap, check.

And suddenly, the fog begins to clear her mind....

Wait - a - minute: Her shampoo is clear, yes. What she put in her hair was clear, yes.

Ohhoho - laughter spilling forth as she looks back and forth between the bottles and the light bulb begins to burn a little brighter - yep!

That explains the mystery of the missing suds!

She had just washed her hair with the very, very gentle cycle!


I only hope it doesn't cause her hair to become coarse. ;) Just sayin'..

When Pigs Fly

They're droppin' like flies!

These days, everyone seems to know someone who's had it.

I'm talking about the swine flu.

We went through about a three week period of illness in the Shell household. Sugar had "not the flu" then Spice got sick with a high fever - also diagnosed as "not the flu", then Sugar got sick again and we took her back to the doctor only for her to be diagnosed with the flu.

After hearing several comparable stories from friends and co-workers, I became convinced that the flu tests they give in the doctors office aren't very accurate and my manager confirmed my suspicions when she had to take her girls to the doctor with flu like symptoms and the doctor actually told her that those tests have about a 30% accuracy rate.

Meanwhile, a good friend of mine had a similar situation going on in her household. First her son got "not the flu" and about a week later she was taking him back to the doctor with no improvement. Then she got sick with "not the flu" - but her niece was diagnosed with the flu.

I was talking to her, trying to convince her that the doctors were wrong and that she did in fact have the flu when it happened again.

You see, every time she stays home sick a bird somehow ends up getting stuck in her fireplace - and I'm usually talking to her when it happens.

She said that he had been in there for a while and he was annoying the crap out of her, but she just didn't feel like dealing with letting him out.

I told her to just tell him he better get out of there before she gave him the flu

"No wait!" I said, "He'll give YOU the bird flu and you'll give HIM the swine flu...and then pigs really will fly."

And there you have it, folks! How diseases transfer from animal to human and human to animal.

Glad I could clear that up for you. :)

Twilight Zone Phone

The phone rang and I answered it.

From the moment I picked up the phone a switch was flipped and I was no longer sitting behind my desk at work; instead, I had been transformed to an alternate universe.

"Let me speak to James" the caller said gruffly
"I'm sorry." I told him, "but you have the wrong number."
"Is this 4566?" He asked.
"Yes, those are the last four digits of my..." I began
"Is this 555-4566?" he interrupted.
"Yes, but this is the bank" I explained.

Now, at this point you would think that he would realize his mistake and disconnect right??

WRONG!

The conversation proceeded as follows:

Him: "Well, let me ask you this."
Me: *silence*
Him: "You're the bank, right?!"
Me: "Well, no sir but I do work for the bank."
Him: "Okay, let me ask you this then. How do I open an account?"

Seriously, is this guy seriously asking me how to open an account when he clearly thought he was calling a private number to speak to James?? Okay, this must be a joke, I think to myself but I continue as follows:

Me: "You would go into one of our full service locations and see someone on the desk side to open an account."
Him: "Could I go into Monroe and open an account?"

Monroe? What's on Monroe? We don't have a bank on Monroe

Me: "Monroe?" I repeat for clarification.
Him: "Yeah, this is the bank right?"
Me: "Yes sir, I work for *name of bank* but I'm not in the centers. Are you referring to *name of bank*?" I ask again, for clarification.
Him: "Yeah, there's a *repeats name of bank* on Monroe."
Me: "Oh, well in that case; yes, you could go into that location and see someone on desk side and they could assist you with opening an account."

Okay, I've clearly answered all of his questions, right? Surly he's going to say thank you and disconnect, right?

Yeah - wrong again!

Him: "Okay good. Let me ask you this then. What are your prices?"
Me: "Our prices?"
Him: "Yeah, your prices to open an account."

Okay, at this point I'm beginning to think I'm the victim of an early morning radio prank. The longer this conversation continues, the stranger it gets. I kept waiting for the DJ to start laughing and tell me that it was all a joke, but that announcement never happened.

Me: "As I said, I'm not in the centers so I don't have that information but what I can do for you is look up the number to one of our branches and you can call them."

Anything to get him off the phone at this point...

Him: "Yeah, that would be mighty nice."
Me: "Okay great, can you hold please?"
Him: "Yeah, thank you kindly."

So, I put him on hold and I look up our phone numbers but of course, there isn't a number for a center on Monroe because that doesn't exist.

Me: "Sir, are you still there?"
Him: "Yes, I thank you for doing this. My birthday is coming up and I need to save some money."
Me: "You're welcome and thank you for holding. Now I've been looking but I don't see a branch on Monroe... I do, however, see one on Madison. Will that one work?"
Him: "Yeah, Madison. That's it. I need to put some money aside. You see, my birthday is coming up and they're throwing me a party. The lady's going to jump out of the cake and I don't want to spend all my money."
Me: *chuckling* "Oh, okay...Well, the number to our Madison location is 555-5378. You just give them a call and someone will be able to assist with your questions."
Him: "Thank you so much and happy new year."
Me: "You're welcome. Happy new year to you too and I hope you have a happy birthday."
Him: "Thank you, and one more thing..."

Here's where I thought the radio host was going to laugh and tell me they were pulling my leg but instead, he says: "You're about to have a baby, aren't you?"

Crazy caller on the phone say wha'?!?!?!

Me: "Um...No."
Him: "Huh, I usually don't get that wrong. Oh well, sweet dreams"

Now, I'm not really sure if the last thing he said to me was "sweet dreams" or "I'll see you in your dreams." or "I saw it in my dreams." all are pretty creepy.


This morning, I got to work and had a voice mail. I checked it and it was a lady calling because she heard that I paint houses...

You think they may be related?? Maybe he had so much fun messing with me that he gave my number out to the rest of the crazies in his family. I don't know, what do you think?

Happy New Year Decade!

As the clock struck midnight, it was out with the old and in with the new.

Many milestones where reached in 2009: In June, Mr. Shell and I celebrated our thirteenth anniversary and Spice, our youngest, turned five. In the fall she started kindergarten.
Sugar, our oldest, went into the Seventh grade and in November she became a [GULP!] teenager.
November also marked our one year anniversary of blissful happiness in our new home. For the first time ever, we live in a neighborhood where we could put our outdoor decorations out without fear that they would grow legs and walk off. We said goodbye to our long time family dachshund, Sam. And blogging took a backseat to social networking and farming on Facebook.

As we ring in the new year, we make resolutions in hopes of accomplishing goals that, up until now, have always seemed unattainable. We tell ourselves: "This will be the year that I get myself organized." or "This year, I'm going to join that gym and get serious about my health." or how about this one, "This year, I'm going to lose weight." And all these things are said with good intentions and thoughts of starting anew, "It's out with the old and in with the new," we say. But as January winds down and the realities of life start settling back in, we realize we aren't making as much progress as we had hoped and all those good intentions usually fall to the wayside.

Not one to make a bunch of new year resolutions that are sure to be broken before the end of a full month, I will admit that I have recently felt a strong conviction towards blogging - I miss it!

For a while, I though I wanted to try my hand at writing a novel but, after many false starts, I just don't feel that I have a story in me. While I love telling stories and I love reading stories, I don't feel like I could "make up" a story that would be interesting enough for people to want to read - much less go out and buy.

To me, blogging is not the same as writing. With my blog, I can take an ever day event and spin it into a tale. While I may never be good enough to have a published novel, I can honestly say that I love telling stories. I love finding ways to take what may have started out as a negative situation and turning it into source of laughter.

I tell you all this to say: In 2010, I am resolved to make more of an effort to listen to my creative voice and tell the stories that are inside my head instead of ignoring them as I have in this last year.

One of my favorite things about myself is that I'm creative. I feel that God has blessed me with the gift of creativity and I also believe if you do not use the gifts He gives to you, He may also take them away, and I certainly don't want my creative voice to become mute. So watch out world, Shelly's blogging again and YOU may be her next victim story! ;)

I'll talk to you soon and Happy New Year :)