How many of you ladies on Facebook posted the color of your bra a few weeks ago to promote Breast Cancer Awareness? (I did!) I was frightened to learn that most people have no idea that heart disease is actually the number one killer of women. According to the American Heart Association, ONE IN THREE women has some sort of heart disease, and most of those women have no idea.

Women face six major risk factors for heart disease that can be prevented, controlled or treated with diet, exercise and sometimes medications prescribed. These are high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, tobacco smoke, physical inactivity, obesity or overweight and diabetes.

This Friday, February 5th, 2010 is National Wear Red Day. Thousands of women across the country will be wearing red this Friday to help raise awareness of heart diseases. You can and even become a fan of Go Red for Women on Facebook.

Too many women die each year because they are unaware that heart disease is their No. 1 killer. We’re asking you to join the thousands of other women, TV personalities, companies and even national landmarks who participate in National Wear Red Day to raise awareness.

Check out Go Red for Women to take the Heart Checkup, read survival stories, and learn about how to reduce your risk factors.

Go Red wants to share this vitally important information with as many women as possible, and to help us do that, they’ve generously offered up a Go Red prize pack to one LaLaGirl reader. Leave a comment right here for a chance to win; I’ll pick the winner on Friday.

Edit: lookie! UPS just rang my doorbell and left this on my porch. It’s an exercise mat, water bottle, notepad, lapel pin, and the book The Complete Guide to Women’s Heart Health. This is the same prize pack you’ll get if you win, so be sure and leave a comment!

Possibly Related

• December 2, 2008 — Bye, Golly.
• November 11, 2008 — Good news! I’m not dying.
• November 5, 2008 — Uh oh!
• October 30, 2008 — The MRI is OVER!
• October 14, 2008 — I hate all this information.

A few weeks later, as I’m making my way through the bag o’ chicken breasts one meal at a time, I realized that there were several chicken breasts in the bag which were NOT wrapped! They were just thrown in there, willy nilly. What the hell? No biggie, I thought. Costco has a reputation for taking anything back, so I figured I’d just return the bag. Well, it was the holidays, and my kids were off track from school and home with me, so I kept putting it off. This week, they returned to school, so it’s just the little girls and me – much easier to make a Costco trip. By now, though, we’ve gone through pretty much the entire bag, except for one I left in its individual package, and the three that were without packaging. Still, I didn’t think it would be a big deal.

We hit Costco today, and I showed the manager guy my weird chicken. He made a face and said, “Well, what do you want us to do about this?” I was like…well, I’d just like to get what I paid for. Right? So, he went and got another bag just like the one I was bringing back, ripped it open, and gave me four chicken breasts out of it. Done. Then, I watched him throw the bag on a shelf behind him. I asked what was going to happen to it and he said after they charged it back, they would throw it out. Whaaaa? If you’re going to throw it out, why not just GIVE it to me? Or, lest Costco think I’m trying to slyly scam them out of some chicken, why not just determine the value of the four chicken breasts, and give me that amount in store credit? What a WASTE to just throw out like five pounds of chicken! The hell? People are starving all over the world and we’re just throwing out perfectly good chicken? This is really annoying to me. I’m already annoyed with the endless, wasteful, unnecessary plastic packaging they seal up everything in, and now I realize they just indiscriminately throw shit out, for no good reason at all. So lame. So here’s what I brought home with me today – the bag of chicken I bought, and the four chicken breasts that aren’t sitting in a dumpster right now:

Speaking of lame! Guess how lame I am? We’ve lived in this neighborhood over a year now – actually thirteen months and two days – and JUST TODAY I discovered a third park. The neighborhood is not that big, guys – if you drove around the perimeter of it, it’s less than three miles! There’s a big park just down the street, and a small pocket park basically on the other side of our house. And today, I realized there’s yet another pocket park just a bit further north – about a block from Kayley’s good friend’s house. In my defense, you can’t see it from the street – but to illustrate my dumbassedness, I spent HOURS scrutinizing every landmark on the map before we moved in here, trying to find every last park, pool, Starbucks, Target, and McDonald’s within MILES of this place. And I completely missed finding a park within walking distance of our house. DUH. It’s not a big giant park or anything, but it will be fun to go there once in awhile – they have monkey bars!

Happy Friday, y’all. I’m going to try to talk my sister into meeting me for a beer later. Twist her arm and all of that.

Possibly Related

• March 16, 2009 — Nice weekend!
• February 13, 2009 — Hey, small world.
• August 7, 2008 — Hostility: Thy Name is Costco.
• June 3, 2008 — An entire blog entry about shopping for food.

But once the nurse walked in carrying four syringes in each hand, their smiles faded and the color drained from their faces. I tried to prepare them for what was in store, and we talked about it for a long time the night before. It still sucked.

I have to say, though, that those girls were much braver than their older brother and sister were at their 5-year-old physical. I remember having to HOLD DOWN Mallory while my sister rounded up everyone out in the hallway. Mallory’s screams drowned out every other sound in the building! The little girls conducted themselves with far less drama! Lots of tears were shed, but they calmed down pretty quickly. It helped to know that we were meeting Daddy for lunch immediately after:

Hot wings at Hooters: makes everything all better, even when you’re five. Now all I need to do is dig out the birth certificates and fill out some paperwork, and these girls will be ready for kindergarten!

Possibly Related

• December 9, 2008 — I haven’t heard of THIS Sonic flavor…
• September 16, 2009 — Eating Right Kids at Safeway
• September 3, 2009 — Goodbyn Lunchboxes – Awesome!
• January 30, 2009 — Hey, I did it!!
• November 7, 2008 — Haircuts and Physicals!

Look! You can now subscribe to LaLaGirl – Twinfinite Chaos – yes, this very blog – on your Amazon Kindle! Right here! I don’t have a Kindle of my very own, although I long for one. If you have one, let me know how it looks on there!

Possibly Related

• January 19, 2010 — Uh, an update to that last post.
• January 19, 2010 — Changes a’coming.
• January 14, 2010 — National De-Lurking Day!
• June 18, 2009 — Hey, random Canadian!
• June 10, 2009 — I’m crabby on the internets today.

Mallory’s car did not do so hot in the race. I believe she came in 20th place, out of like…26 girls. So, at least she wasn’t dead last – but now we know some tips and tricks for next year. One of the engineers Paul knows from work was actually running the race – he’s the “keeper” of the track for the boy scouts, and Paul picked his brain as to what makes for a winning car. He gave Paul the enginerd explanation as to why you need to add weight to the car, and what to do with the axles, and all of that. I have a feeling next year, we’ll start working on that little car BEFORE race day.

Here are our cute girls with their cars – such a fun event!

Possibly Related

• January 12, 2010 — Is there a tutorial somewhere?
• September 25, 2009 — Fall Break!
• September 24, 2009 — No TV Saturday – Worldwide Day of Play!
• February 4, 2009 — We <3 Story Time.
• October 24, 2008 — Presenting: The Justice League.

Pablo’s progressed to where he speaks pretty well, but he’s still really not verbal enough to tell me what hurts, whether or not he ate something he shouldn’t have, or even if he’s feeling a little bit better. This is by far the most frustrating thing about autism – not being able to communicate back and forth when it’s extra important.

Poor punk! He’s playing with Legos, so maybe we’re on the up and up!

Possibly Related

• October 17, 2009 — The House of FLU!
• April 9, 2009 — Don’t wanna catch my ammonia!
• April 1, 2009 — Reactive Airway Disease SUCKS!
• October 7, 2009 — Meh.
• April 10, 2009 — Shouldn’t I be losing my mind right about now?

My blog writing has actually been a huge point of contention between my husband and me. He’s a very private person, and having a wife who blogs is difficult for him. We had a big heart-to-heart about the nature of writing online, and how difficult it can be to share things about my life and my family without becoming a stalker’s wet dream. He made me realize that sometimes, it doesn’t matter how carefully you word something, because people are always going to see what they want to see in it.

Who would have ever thought that my husband, who hates everything about blogging, would be the one to talk me off the ledge? He loves me and wants me to be happy, and he knows that writing is what makes me happy. So, at his insistence, I’m going to stick around. My sincere apologies for crying wolf – I hate it when people do that!

Possibly Related

• January 14, 2010 — National De-Lurking Day!
• April 24, 2008 — Thursday Thirteen – 8 years of changes!
• January 26, 2010 — I’m on your Kindle!
• January 19, 2010 — Changes a’coming.
• January 19, 2010 — Interesting!

I appreciate all the support and love I’ve gotten from my readership over the years. I’ve always looked to so many of you for guidance, validation, and often just camaraderie. I’d like to offer my sincere thanks to you guys – you mean the world to me! It’s time for the blogosphere to take a back seat to my actual life, though. I’m sure you’ve noticed my posts tapering off over the past few months. You can expect more of that as I take this blog in a new direction. I’m not going to fade into the mist or anything, but the days of sharing the intimate details of my everyday life are over.

If you have any questions, please direct them to me via email. The contact link is above. Love ya!

Possibly Related

• January 26, 2010 — I’m on your Kindle!
• January 19, 2010 — Uh, an update to that last post.
• January 14, 2010 — National De-Lurking Day!
• September 29, 2009 — Facebook Amnesty! You can delete me, it’s okay.
• June 18, 2009 — Hey, random Canadian!

Disclaimer: the lunches at my kids’ school may be out of sight, but I have no idea, since they’ve never eaten one. They don’t sound appetizing to me from the menu, and the writer of this blog is in another state. I just found the whole idea to be pretty interesting.

Possibly Related

• January 19, 2010 — Uh, an update to that last post.
• January 14, 2010 — National De-Lurking Day!
• September 29, 2009 — Facebook Amnesty! You can delete me, it’s okay.
• September 14, 2009 — Mile High Mamas at The Warwick
• July 11, 2009 — Facebook has destroyed blogging.

At the hospital, we settled in and got ready to meet our newest babies. We were at a brand new hospital (Good Sam, up in Lafayette!) and we were the 13th delivery there and the very first twin delivery. As the OB was doing the ultrasound, preparing for the delivery, we got some unexpected, fabulous news. Both babies had turned head-down. Just days before, at my final appointment with the perinatologist, we were told that a c-section was the only way to go – we had one baby breech and the other transverse. To hear that both babies had turned completely around in just a couple of days was the most wonderful news ever – I cried because I was so relieved!

The c-section was canceled. The OB broke my water, I labored a few hours, and Lexi and Nikki were born that evening. They were born at 4:43 and 4:47, just four minutes apart. It was my fastest, most painful, scariest delivery, but damn if I didn’t birth some beautiful, healthy, big babies.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to find out I was having another set of twins – but now I cannot even imagine them not being here. I’m so lucky.

Possibly Related

• August 29, 2008 — 5 years ago.
• January 18, 2008 — Happy 3rd Birthday, Little Girls!
• August 30, 2009 — Pablo and Mallory turn SIX.
• August 2, 2009 — Cake Assault, Drunk Karaoke, and wait, there’s more…
• May 11, 2009 — Bye Bye, Quad Stroller!