Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Time Out - Cosmo Country

Buschtinis
The Country Music Awards (CMAs) are an annual event in our household. They present an opportunity to celebrate our rural roots and enjoy some of life's finer - and simpler - pleasures.

Now, I realize that the combination of the words "country" and "music" likely make many of your hairs stand on end, but I believe this is a culturally Pavlovian response.  If you like the 'Biebs (J. Bieber) and "hate" country or "listen to everything but country," give it five minutes - replace any of his references to girls with "beer" or "trucks" and the tracks are interchangeable. It's like Katie Couric and headaches - country and music just go together.

In our home, there's a defined decorum for celebrating this time-honored tradition. And as with many holidays, this is centered around the fare. While not a huge country music fan, the huz looks forward to the CMAs each year because of the food - and such refined fare it is! (shameless plug - for a variety of amazing fare options, check out the huz's site.)

down home delights
This year's menu included the following:

Country fried steak
Collard greens
Mashed 'taters

And this year's beverage of choice? Busch Light

E's bromance with ZB
With the baby asleep, mom and dad were ready to rock. We had previously selected our favorites and placed bets on who would win the most categories. With gravy and beer a'flowin', we squinted from the glare of Carrie Underwood's legs, shook our heads at Brad Paisley's terrible jokes and watched performances of some of our favorite songs of the year. We wished Eric Church would have sang Smoke a Little Smoke, that we would have seen a little less of Thompson Square *what is that song about anyway* and that Keith Urban would have karate chopped Taylor when she guffawed and sapped over winning entertainer of the year, but it was a great night and an even better way for mom and dad to have some fun at home.






Monday, November 7, 2011

FUPA Busters - The Kid Crunch

I know you all know what a fupa is. If you don't know, I'll give you a few hints. It's not what the girls in middle school sang to me from the back of the bus when it was my "it" week. That was "Andi's Got Big Buns" (to the tune of "Janie's Got a Gun"). It's not why my brothers called me "Andrea the Giant" when we played King of the Dock. In fact, my fupa is about 5" north of my "thunder thighs" - (how's that for a three-sentence overview of my hellish teen body image issues!?).

No, a fupa is an inverted muffin top, a 12-pack too many, a party in the panties.

It's also... the bane of my existence. It's the result of 10-months of feeding and nurturing this beautiful growing baby that makes me smile 1439 minutes of the day. It's the marsupial version of myself. Mom, a FUPA is Fat, Unforgiving Post-prego Andi.

(It's okay, if you still don't know, go ahead and check out the Urban Dictionary definition of it.)

However, like most working moms, I'm still trying to figure out how in the hell I can get everything done to feed, dress and keep the baby happy while still loving the huz, being responsive to clients, employees and my boss--and not looking like the Bride of Chucky throughout the process.

Basically, I have zero time to myself. And if I do, I'd rather spend it zen'ed out in the tub with an awesome malbec or cuddled up in bed trying to pick up where I'd left off in the book I'd dropped by my bedside six months ago. Yes, that would be more appealing than sweating profusely over an elliptical machine while watching "Growing Pains" reruns. Even though Kirk Cameron's hair used to be SO hawt. 

But I found a solution. It's the kid crunch. Want to spend time with your kid AND exercise? Set that little beautiful babe on your stomach, curl your legs up and crunch. To the tune of touch your elbow to the opposite knee bicycle crunch - drop the knees and neck down to the ground, then up with the baby, twist and crunch. Try three to four sets of 20 and that should do the trick (particularly if you have a 21 lb. six-month-old). The baby giggles, you giggle, bye bye fupa!