#SmoothBlogger updates, Big Daddy style

I am participating in a campaign as a Smooth Fitness Ambassador and will be reviewing a treadmill from Smooth Fitness in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts/opinions expressed are always my own.
I wanted to update you all on my hubby's progress ever since he started his "Smooth Fitness" way of life. He has worked so hard to make sure he fits in some time in his crazy, busy schedule to get a jog or run in on the treadmill, even if it means getting up at 5:00 AM! So far he lost 6 pounds in the first 6 weeks but gained back 3 pounds. I think it was a combination of holiday festivities and stress eating that did it. He knew that it was time to get serious again.

He had to regroup and go back to eating leaner and cleaner. Thankfully, he was able to lose the 3 pounds he gained and even lost 2 more. I have to say that Dwayne really surprises me with his food choices. He is not one to eat anything he knows nothing about or sounds too trendy. One of his latest favorites (mine as well) is fat-free Greek yogurt with organic granola.

He even requests vegetarian meals and NO rice. Now that one is shocking! He can tell if he has gone a couple days without exercising on the treadmill because it shows clearly through his mood and sleep habits. Dwayne has a goal of being under 200 pounds so there is a lot of work to be done. He has 30 pounds to go right now and the whole family is cheering him on. We will celebrate his 40th birthday at the end of June on the beach so he has his work cut out for him! I will let you all know how far he gets in the next few weeks. 

Be sure to check out Smooth Fitness on the web, Facebook and Twitter to learn more about their line of treadmills and elliptical machines. 

Most husbands have a beer fridge. Look what mine has...

Our family took a trip to Charlotte a couple weekends ago to celebrate William's 5th birthday. Our first stop was the Bass Pro Shop. Actually, we went there 3 times that day! It is Dwayne and William's favorite store. I think they could spend hours in there if you let them. They both enjoy father and son fishing time so me and the girls went our way and the boys stayed at Bass Pro Shop.

When we met back up, I see a styrofoam cooler in Dwayne's arms. I just gave him "the look" and he goes straight into "the pitch". He tells me that the fishing season was getting ready to start and how it would be a good idea to grow his own worms. **Insert stinky face here** Well what is a wife to do... you have to let men do man things from time to time. I listened to his very convincing pitch along with dozens of reasons why his idea was so brilliant. I let him purchase his funky little worm growing foolishness. I won't say that there wasn't any eye rolling involved. 

He ended up not being able to use the styrofoam cooler kit because it was too big for our mini-fridge so he use some of my old food storage containers instead. He poked tiny holes in the tops of the containers.  He purchased some sort of packing material that you add distilled water to that has the food the worms need inside the mix. All that was left was to add your own worms.  

It is all very disgusting to me but I am still amazed at how quickly they have multiplied! I won't talk about Dwayne's debacles with some escapees.

I have told him that as long as I don't have to do anything with his worm growing experiment, he can have at it. Of course the business man in him wants to start selling them. I can't deal with this dude sometimes! I suppose there are worse hobbies he could be into.

And yeah, he is that serious that he has dedicated "worm water". I just can't....

SO, what crazy little hobby does your spouse have?

I love them

This photo warms my heart...

18 years!

This weekend Dwayne and I will be celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary. We have big plans and are both excited to share this time together. It still amazes us both how long we have been together, 22 years in all. Regardless of whatever life has thrown our way, we hung in there. We have seen each other through the darkest of times and have celebrated the the greatest moments of our lives-- together.

I appreciate and cherish our relationship and can't wait to see what the future holds for us *ahem* I am thinking luxury cruise?! ;-)

My Pinterest is now linked to my junkie corners

I have a confession. I love to clean. I really do love to clean. Clutter makes me feel nervous. My house is very plainly decorated. Actually, my house is not really decorated.. more like void of a bunch of crap everywhere. Everywhere except... I have this little problem (so my husband thinks). He says I have an obsession with having tiny, junkie corners in several places in our home. I admit, I do. I have a tiny pile next to my bed, at the foot of my bed, in the family room... you get the idea. You are probably wondering what exactly I keep in my little piles... Everything from clothing, coupons, receipts, nail files, pens... nothing is exempt except trash. I have spent the weekend ridding my house of my junkie corners. Yep, everything is in the right place. No junk anywhere in sight. I have declared (no promises) that I will make an effort to cut down on my little bits of junk. Maybe.

Since it was a 3-day weekend I took some time to chill. I did some cleaning and cooking but for the most part I sat my little self down and relaxed (I think). I have recently started getting into Pinterest. I find myself pinning for hours some days. If you are already on Pinterest then you know just what I am talking about. If you are not then what the heck are you waiting for? So this is where my smart talking husband comes in. He says that Pinterest is filling my void for my junkie corners. He says now I can have virtual junkie corners thanks to Pinterest. Sadly, he is not lying! ;-)

Before we had Ipads & Pinterest

I was sitting in my office thinking yesterday morning and glanced over at this clipboard. It is not the best looking clipboard at all. As a matter of fact, it is absolutely tacky. It has paint drips, marker smudges and who knows what else on it. Well it turns out that this tacky thing is filled with memories...about 20 years to be exact. You see, this was Dwayne's clipboard in high school. He was very into his office supplies. He even carried a briefcase! During his rap days, he went to visit our local radio station and had DJ Laz from Power 96 autograph it. If you are from Miami you would know what a big deal that was! DJ Laz is still doing his thing.

You can see where I wrote all over it. So high school girl of me huh? Even Dwayne signed his old rap name "D-Smoothe" 

I guess one thing is for sure, we have been together FOREVER!
I hung the clipboard on my office wall. It is very special and will be treasured forever :-) 

I'm a mom and I lie

Today I was on the phone chatting with my buddy and of course that gives William the idea that he doesn't need to listen to me. I told him he needed to complete his map puzzle so that we could put it back where it belonged. He decided to stack the pieces and ignore me. I told him I was on the phone with his dad and said that daddy needs him to pack his puzzle away right now. Do you know the boy sprung into action immediately?! I asked him to pack the puzzle up several times with no luck. Here I go and say his dad says to do it and the job was done in a matter of minutes. Hmmph! Oh well, I guess it is good that he fears his dad and knows he better do what is expected of him or else he will have to suffer the consequences. Although I don't make it a habit to lie to my children, I do what I have to when the need comes about. It is so important for dads to discipline their sons. Like I always say, only a man can teach a boy how to be a man. I'm lucky to have such a fantastic husband to do just that with our son.

Do you lie to your kids when you need to?

How in the world did this happen?

Yesterday morning I was dropping my daughters off to school and heading back home to gather my things so I could go to the store. I was driving about 25-30 mph since I was exiting from the school speed limit. As I was coming around a curve on the road I hear a very loud pop in the back of the car. I was stunned and not sure what it was. Lucky for me my car speaks to me when things go wrong. I looked at the screen and it said to check right rear tire pressure. I watched it go from 33 to 1 in a matter of seconds! I had a flat tire. Thankfully I was in a familiar area and found a safe spot to pull over on the side of the road. I called Dwayne and he was there in what felt like only 5 minutes. Thank goodness! He very quickly took off my bad tire and put on the spare. He showed me what appeared to be either a flattened nail or piece of metal sticking out of the tire. Now it was off to Walmart to get a new one. I am so happy I always buy the road hazard protection so at least I didn't have to pay the full price for a new tire. But check out what they found that was the culprit in causing my tire to blow out...

This is a screw driver without the handle. When they showed it to me I freaked out and could not understand how it happened! As a matter of fact, the tire installers were laughing and amazed at how this huge piece of metal even got inside my tire. The funny part is the flat-head tip of the screw driver was sticking out of the tire so this meant the blunt end is what penetrated it. Crazy!! 

To show just how big the screw driver was I put it next to a pen and a nail file. The guys at Walmart said they have seen things the size of a pin or an average nail pierce and ruin a tire but never anything as large as a screwdriver! It was a crazy way to start my day and I am thankful I was in a safe area and not driving at a high speed. 

I got to thinking and realized I am so glad I am one of those moms that gets fully dressed (sometimes even with make-up) to drive the kids to school! :)

I just had to have it

I am not a big television watcher but on occasion I will see something that captures my attention. I confess that some of the "As seen on TV" items suck me in. About 5 or 6 years ago I saw the Pedi Paws pet nail trimmer infomercial and I knew I absolutely had to have it. After all, clipping your doggy's nails is a sometimes difficult task. This product looked like a great solution. Dwayne was against me buying it but knew that there was little he could say to stop me. I did it. I bought it. $19.95.

I tried it and it sounded like a freakin' dental drill!!! Poor Milo was scared to death of the thing and it made the task even harder. Needless to say the doggone (no pun intended) thing has been sitting in the box for years. Lesson learned. I still hear "I told you so" for that one.

Have you ever purchased anything dumb from an infomercial?

Being like dad

Every time Dwayne is around William tends to want to hang around him and in some cases imitate his daddy. This can be a great thing and other times... it can be a very bad thing! Thankfully the good outweighs the bad and Will gets to learn a lot of things from his dad. Dwayne has taught him how to cast a line out in the water, catch a fish, take out the trash, throw a football and so many other neat things. I love when he sees his dad reading and wants to do the same. When I see the two of them together I realize how important a father's role is most especially for boys. After all, a boy can only learn how to be a man from a man.
Now some days Will takes his manliness too far. Yesterday I caught him pulling the cushions off the couch and destroying the family room so I asked him why he was doing that. He responds with "Go back in the kitchen and wash the dishes!" I tell you what, he is lucky he is so adorable or else.... Now you know Dwayne was proud and pulled the old "That's my boy!" Men!!!

Go Dwayne!!

I just had to share that Dwayne won some trophies in a recent Toastmasters speaking contest that was held locally. He took home 2nd place for Humorous Speaking Contest & 2nd place in Evaluation Contest Division D. He also won 2 first place trophies in the same categories last week! He has made it to the finals that will be held in Charleston, South Carolina next month. My hubby certainly has the gift of gab! We are all so proud of him!! :-)

Look what was lurking in our backyard...

It rained last night...heavily. It was the first time in 2 weeks. I was so happy for it. I just didn't expect this...

You should have seen how many birds were lined up on the fence and flying down close to the snake. I guess they thought they were going to catch a big worm? I get chills every time I look at this photo.

This cements my dislike of the Summer months. Thank goodness for husbands. I don't know what I would have done without Dwayne! He sent me back in the bedroom and he made it go away. I know I talk a lot of smack about him but today... he is royalty!

Has anyone had any encounters with snakes this Summer?

Only my husband would do this

Dwayne was drinking his cherry soda the other day aka his "brotha drink". I will never understand why he likes to put his glass in the freezer with soda and ice in it. It stayed in there for days. Brie got tired of looking at it and let it thaw out on the counter and then poured it out. Does anyone in your house do this sort of foolishness?

Throwback: Don't Mess With The Man's Records!

Over the weekend, Dwayne and I cleaned out and organized one of our storage rooms. We came across a lot of things that were keepers and just as many items that were either going to be donated or thrown out. Now if you have been reading Momfiles for a while then you would know that we are really old school. Actually my husband sort of takes old school back way more than I do. We came across billions of cassette tapes...EPMD, Slick Rick, Luke, Vanilla Ice, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Salt 'n Pepa and the list goes on for days. He has a suitcase full along with a few shoes boxes full. He refuses to ever part with them. He tells me if I ever try to get rid of his collection that it will be grounds for divorce! Of course he says this in his Bernie Mac voice.

We had at least a couple dozen mix-tapes. I remember making them off the radio and the DJ always messed up the last part of the song. If you have no idea of what I am talking about then you are a youngen.

After we browsed through some of the tapes we moved on to the records. He has a big box full that he has actually put in his will. I think they will go to William.

I laughed so hard when I saw the Beat Street album. On the left hand side it says "Dwayne AKA Little Wizard" bahahaha! That was his Junior High School dance name.

We sure reminisced over some good times. He has the first album Prince put out and so many other classic artists. Now I need to buy Dwayne a record player.

Do you still have your old cassette tapes or record albums? If you are laughing at us right now, shut it up!

Sometimes I just want to say....

I am sure some of you will not be surprised to know that this post is about my dear husband Dwayne. He gets these ideas in his head sometimes and because I am a great wife, I humor him. We live on a pond and he LOVES to go fishing as often as he can. Our pond has all kinds of fish in it although we have never eaten any out of there before. I took him to the store so he could buy some new fishing supplies. He was going to wait until it cooled down a bit this evening to see if he could catch anything. That was all he was supposed to do.

How about an hour before he went out there he starts rummaging through MY kitchen looking for items to cook fish with. He went on and on about how he was going to catch the fish and get it straight into some hot "grease" as he calls it (country ain't it?). I'm sorry, when we lived in Miami we used to catch fish and eat it all the time. Here in South Carolina, we just go up to Publix or Kroger and buy it ready to cook. I will spare you all the gross details of his stanky fishes he caught. I cleaned the 3 fish he brought in and cooked them. He sat at the table feeling like a King, bragging about his catch. Then all of a sudden things got quiet. Very quiet. I asked him if everything was okay. He looked at me out the corner of his eye and said next time he wants fish he will just send me to the store to buy it. I just giggled a bit and almost said "I told you so". He knew he lost this one. I am going to talk about him for a very long time. Sometimes men get into this "manly-man, I want to conquer the world" state of mind and as a good wife you just have to let them have their fun. I am quite certain Dwayne learned his lesson! Now I am off to go get the fish funk out of the air :)

WTH Wednesday

I bet you are looking at this picture thinking WTH? My husband asked some random lady who owned a few trees that bare this fruit if he could have a few. She told him to take as many as he wanted. He tells her that he used to eat these "Chinese plums" as a kid growing up in Miami. She then tells him that if you drop a seed in the ground it will grow into a plum tree. Why the hell did she tell him that?
Now we have to keep these horrible looking things for him to plant. I am so annoyed because we already have some American plum trees in our yard that are getting ready to removed and now he wants to go plant more? WTH! I wish there was a way I could trash these things! I suggested he plants a couple in a big pot and go from there. I will kick his backside if we end up with a grove of those things! Has anyone even seen these doggone plums before?

Wordless Wednesday

I'm a simple gal

I am very different from most of the women I know. I don't care for fancy things and get more out of little things (even free things) any day. My sweet husband reached into an envelope he received at his Post Office box and handed me this:

I was trying to remember if I signed up for this freebie. He then reveals that he signed up for it! I was so impressed by this~I told you I was simple! This really brightened my day. I know he is going to get me for this post and also the free advertising!!
HE'S SO SWEET!! <--and still quite the manly man :)

What William loves

Every single morning when William wakes up he goes into my bedroom and looks through my window. He tells his daddy that he loves to throw rocks in the water and catch a fish. He repeats this at least 6 times.
Since the weather has warmed up, Dwayne takes him out in the backyard to the water to throw a few rocks and to toss the line in (with a live worm). William will swear that he caught a fish. Poor guy, the fish are not biting quite yet. Dwayne can't wait for the day William pulls up his first real fish. I can hear William now saying "FISH ON!" Hopefully we will be able to get a photo or video when that day comes. I have a feeling it will be soon.

He's old school and not changing one bit

If you have been an active Momfiles reader then you might know that Dwayne and I are very old school. I however know when to get with the times. For example, these are my ear buds. They are cute, small and can fit in my pocket.

Here is Dwayne's version~ the bulky headphones. He has had them since about 1996. It finally came apart a week ago and he was heartbroken.

He went and bought new headphones. They are HUGE. It is like he specifically needed to seek out the biggest ones he could find. Not only is it enormous but it also has a 50 foot cord attached! WTH!?

You can compare the size of the old ones with his new ones. My husband takes old school to his own ridiculous level. Oh and he likes to listen to his cassette tapes from his boom box with these. He has even tried plugging this thing into his BlackBerry! bahahaha!

I did go and buy him some plain ear buds for his phone so he doesn't look like a fool. Bless his heart, what do I do with him? ;)