Sweatin with the Oldie

Since moving in to Heir Head Manor I have started a new fitness routine.  OK, I admit more like I got galled into action to actually get up and move when my mother on her many visits here spoke incessantly about her after work routine with her co-workers that involves them huffing and puffing their way through the Insanity workout routines.

"I noticed the gym teacher and another teacher in her thirties both had to stop and get drinks of water" she boasted "but I just kept on going.  As soon as I move to Vermont you and I can start doing Insanity together" she smiled at me as she spoke these last words.

Now I have always been more in the fitness realm of my father.  Every year he vows to get in shape talks about it for um, maybe ten minutes, drops down and does some stretching a few sit ups says he is going to  exercise and then mulls around until the next year when he repeats the same conversation sit ups and all.

With the thought of my mother and middle age looming close on the horizon I have decided to change my ways, and I have kind of sort of.  I am no where close to Insanity ready but at this point I can get through a twenty minute workout, provided it is not to strenuous and I don't have to move around too much.

Admittedly there has been no change to my form, no toning, or shifting, or wobble free muscles in sight, but it has only been two days so I figure I have to give it time.  If all else fails there is always my fathers method I can drop to the floor and give them twenty once a year.  It seems to have worked all right for him as he is still rocking his slender shape.

Of course he lives on ice cream can consume an entire bag of chips in an afternoon and thinks that cutting down to only one packet of blue cheese dressing on his huge lunch salad from the local grocery store is dieting.  Obviously he is blessed with an extremely high metabolism, so for now I guess I'll go the way of my mom and keep on huffing and puffing my way until I become Insanity ready. 

I can just hear her now as I stop for that drink of water.  "I do Insanity with my daughter everyday of course she has to take little breaks and drinks of water."  Then she'll smile that knowing smile.  What better motivation to keep on sweatin before I'm getting the pants beat off me by the oldie.

Drills and Frills

This morning we were blasted out of bed by the sound of extreme drilling. That's right extreme drilling at 6:30 in the morning right outside our very own door. Living on a lake obviously has it's many, many, upsides and a few downsides one being the sport of ice fishing which unfortunately is taking place right outside our door.

Peeping out the window I groaned as I noted hole after hole that had been drilled through the ice. No walking across the lake now unless you want a wet pant leg when your foot crashes through the thinly scabbed over ice.

Well if worse comes to worse and our cake pop business doesn't make it I have a business idea for my dad that involves him wearing camouflage Carharts and tooling across the ice on an ATV towing a barbecue grill loaded with meats that he sells to hungry ice fishermen. Perhaps his business could also include selling a cake pop or two.

Maybe all the ice and the fishermen are the keys to cake pop success and I should load up a sleigh with cake pops and pull it around on the ice selling our cakey confections. I can just imagine those rugged fishermen chomping on my colorfully swirled treats.

Who knows maybe it will become all the rage and catch on with ice fishermen everywhere. For now I'll just settle for a good nights sleep and wake up to my alarm which is far less annoying than a drill.

New Beginnings

This week I turned in all my paper work to retire in June!!  I am so excited.  It is so liberating to be able to start another career yet it is also very scary.  I have spent 30 years in education; teaching Marines to second grade students.  When your husband is in the Army, you have to move all over the country and internationally and that means you have many different kinds of educational jobs.  I have had many educational jobs.  I have a been a school principal for the last 14 years.  The job has been rewarding and challenging but now I am ready to embark on a new carreer with my daughter. 

Since our family has not been afraid to move our children all left home at 18 to go to college anywhere in the U.S.  We have been so proud of them but we have also been apart from them since high school graduation.  I am excited to be able to live very close to Amy, very close.  I know we will have a great time making our new business a big hit!!  Even though Amy says she not all that excited I know the momemteum will catch her spirit.  If it is not obvious to the reader that I have the energy in the family it will be obvious in time.  Cake pops here we come!

Lots of Opinions but Little Work

Tonight was supposed to be the first night that my mother added a post.  Having waited until ten pm I finally called her to see what had happened to the great gusto to blog she had harped about yesterday.  After two rings of the phone she answered; the first words out her mouth being "well I don't think I can blog tonight" as the television blared in the background.

Now I know that her and my father's work days are long and challenging and they both arrive home exhausted, but it seems to me that those who call everybody under the sun with news of their great blog and make huge announcements about their intentions to start a million dollar blog should put their money where their mouth is.

Unfortunately I know the score over there in parental figure land.  My mother an adamant clean freak has finished work, scoured the house, and now lays in bed exhausted watching reruns of the Golden Girls.  While my father who is lactose intolerant except when eating huge bowls of ice cream with peanuts and chocolate sauce is indulging in his dinner the previous mentioned huge bowl of ice cream.
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You know that old saying the family that blogs together stays together.  Since we are the family that blogs together, makes cake pops together, and soon will be growing vegetables together we should be joined at the hip.  So for now I guess my parents can enjoy their pre-retirement bliss cleaning, eating ice cream, and watching really loud TVs, because once we all live here in Heir Head Manor it's all about blogging, cake popping, and gardening.  I am sure they can hardly wait.   

Million Dollar Fantasies

True to form I already hate blogging.  As usual my mother has taken the whole idea of starting a blog and turned it into million dollar fantasies and an entirely irritating experience.  Everyone has an opinion my mother, my sister, my brother everyone has chimed in their very annoying two cents. 

The blogging must commence everyday, I should write articles, and comment on other peoples blogs.  I must become a highly visible blogger so that this site can take off and earn one million dollars a year.  To that I say good luck and let me know how it all turns out.

Not to sound like a brat, but the constant input that comes with living in a family home can become overwhelming.  I've gained ten pounds just thinking about making the cake pops, blogging everyday, oh yeah and the vegetable garden we are starting this spring.  Yahoo I can't wait to get the input on just exactly where to plant the carrots.

 My mother has now officially filed her retirement papers and will be here in six months or less.  Oh happy days.  Since the culture here is somewhat closed to outsiders she has proclaimed that we can become best friends.  I can hardly contain my joy. 

I know that I am blessed to have the family I have and be surrounded by smart, loving, and caring people.  It just seemed so much easier to be in the midst of all this family togetherness when I lived three thousand miles away.  Oh well life is definitely a journey and this one is proving to be an interesting and bumpy ride. 

Stress and Mess

    Though it has been a rocky last few months settling into living in a communal setting having my mother hover over my shoulder at different times noting things from the way I do laundry, the cleanliness of my refrigerator, to the tightness of my pants things are starting to improve.  I started a part time job with an after school program working with local students.  The students have warmed right up to me even if the stiff culture of this New England area has stopped the parents from having a similar response.
    Now that everything is on a smoother path the endless stream of questions about our business has begun.  Oh did I forget to mention that charming nugget of information at the beginning of this blog.  Well here it is, my mom and I are starting a business together.  That's right, not only will we live together, blog together, but now we will work together to build a business.  Sounds like a dream come true, right?  Don't get me wrong I appreciate all the experiences I am having right now and the relationship this is helping to forge with my mom.  It's just that starting a business with anyone is rough so when it's you and your mother hurtling along on the path to entrepreneurial success well things can get a little sticky metaphorically and literally.
    The business we are starting is none other than the great art of making cake pops.  You know those lovely little balls of cakey goo that have been mashed and rolled and shoved on a stick.  Yum!  Sounds easy right.  Let me assure it is not.  Trying to scrounge up clients to let you sell these little nuggets of bliss on a stick in  their store is harder than it sounds.  So is the decorating that thousands of pictures flooded on the Internet make look so easy and on top of it all is my mother who though not yet retired from her current job wants to get the business in full swing and has many, many, many, helpful suggestions.
    This Christmas we debuted a new flavor of our cake pops our families traditional Christmas caramel cookies.  I can't tell you what's in the cookies my family has held on to the recipe tighter than a mafia secret, but they are gooey and chewy and delicious.  After much debate about any adjustments that were needed to the recipe so they would be able to adhere to the stick we dove right in.  As we worked I made various suggestions that we let the batter cool before we shaped and speared them, but in her absolute assurance my mom brushed my chatter aside.  Before I knew it we had rows of misshapen bobble headed caramels slowly sliding down their sticks while my father reluctant to involve himself in the may lay of the cake pop making merely muttered that they looked great.
    Let's just hope that deformed cake pops become all the rage, maybe we can call them frankenpops and start a new trend.  No matter with a little work and a few tweaks I am sure we will get it right.  Let's just hope we still have our sanity at the end of this journey and that one of us isn't living in a tent at the end of the driveway with my sister having to come up and mediate while my father vacantly strolls around saying that's great and looks delicious I'll try it later.  Never a dull moment here at Heir Head Manor.
    Curious about our cake pops check them out at http://www.vermontpops.com/.  We promise to make yours an experience you will never forget!
   

New Year Revolution

    Part of trying something new is the inevitable feeling of insecurity it can bring.  Just last night I dreamt that my parents told me that living with them was too easy and I needed to move out, but that's just the thing it isn't easy.  Not because we fight all the time or because I secretly despise them and blame them for my every failing, but because of my own attitude towards multi generational living.
    Being an American is all about being bigger and better than the previous generation.  We move out, move on, and move up.  We fly the coop putting as much distance between us and them as possible; only coming back to flaunt our success and buy them a big expensive gift that says "hey look at me I made it".  Moving back in and planning a life that involves living with my parents just makes me feel like legions of people are shouting "loser". 
    It's this attitude that I am going to try to defeat in the new year.  I don't need to have a big fancy house of my own, or live miles away from my parents performing some high rolling job to prove my success.  In the end my life will only be measured by the love I have given and received and though quarters can be tight and chaos can reign at Heir Head Manor there is no shortage of love.
     So thanks Mom and Dad for building a house that can be home to us all and having hearts big enough to make anytime without your presence seem empty.  Hey even my sunshine gets depressed when they leave.  Now that says a lot for his future in laws.