New York Eataly

A Very Special Easter Phone Call

As I am slicing the bread to prepare for our soon-to-be lovely Easter Dinner, I get a phone call from a man named Cole who tells me of a lovely surprise:  Our stuff has arrived!

And though it is Easter Sunday, and though my uncle did not respond to my email a few weeks ago querying about where our items are, and though I am running late to serve up dinner, I am still pleased because I am tired of the same clothes I have been wearing for 8 weeks.

Cole says that he was planning on dropping off the stuff that day, but my uncle had told him not to deliver on Easter Sunday which I appreciated and then he asks me for the address.

The following conversation ensues:

Me:  ...Orem, Utah

Cole:  Wait, WHAT?  WHERE is THAT?

Me:  Uh, Utah?

Cole:  No, I mean, where in Utah?

Me:  Oh, it's about 45 minutes south of Salt Lake City

Cole:  SOUTH????

Me:  Wait, where are you?

Cole:  Ogden.  You say Orem is to the SOUTH?  I was told you were in Ogden.


Me:  No.  We have never lived in Ogden, we never planned on living in Ogden, and we never will live in Ogden.

Cole: [Silence]

Me:  So... we have a few things in the truck that we want at the house and then we will head over to storage which is just a mile away, is that okay?

Cole:  I was not told this is a two-part deal.

Me:  Okay well just show up at the house, okay?


For those of you not aware of Utah geography, here is a map for you:

If anyone is free, we will be unpacking around mid-morning.

And then no sleep til Brooklyn tomorrow pm.

Three Dimensional

For so long I have felt like a one-dimensional person, whose main conversation topic is education.  As I counted a 4th arrow in my quiver, I could add failing parenting and/or managing children to my topics.

Most everything else I don't have much to offer.


But I have a NEW thing that I want to talk about:  Zumba.

I have always been a zumba girl, I have been attending classes off and on for a number of years starting with a salsa aerobics class about 7 years ago with my beloved instructor, Sergio.  If only I blogged at that time, I link you to a few pics of him.  He was truly adorable, a little latino man with a motorcycle.

The class was full of older latinas who were very focused on Sergio's physique.  I tried to avert my eyes because, well, strangers who are good-looking like that kind of embarrass me.  I wish now my gaze had lingered longer, but, I am sure I am not lacking anything in my life for having a cloudy memory.

For the years in-between, I went to hip-hop and a few zumba classes in Sacramento, and then I kind of petered out when we got to SB.  I started to pick up SOME momentum again before we moved thanks to the efforts of my friend Lisa who helped encourage me to go by... going.

Now I live in Orem which has GOT to be some kind of zumba capital.  I go to a class 4 nights a week plus Saturdays and it is PACKED.  I like all the instructors and the classes are good exercise, but one of the instructors is absolutely phenomenal.  She is easy to follow yet she does some fun steps that keep my mind off of the fact that I am exercising.  She is super energetic without being annoying AND her taste in music is so similar to my own it is uncanny.  So I stayed after class to get to know her, maybe kind of stalkerish to her since apparently in Utah there are so many students in the classes they don't even need to ask your name.  It turns out that she is one of those amazing people who has six kids, an amazing body, and a podcast--and she is a great instructor to boot.

I feel like I should thank her and of course Chellese my awesome friend who got me started down the road of fitness, for my current happy mentality about life.  Exercise really DOES make a difference and may I always remember how much nicer I am to be around when I am taking care of my body.


So next time you see me, I will be happy to show you the 20 youtube videos I string together to make a workout when I can't go to class, or talk about a playlist, or contemplate whether the classes in Utah have cleaner music than they do in California.

3-D me.

Happiness

O Women of Utah

For all the songs written about California girls, I wonder why no one has chosen to write one about the women of Utah.  

Take a ride with me as I have a flashback to my days at BYU...

I grew up in a small town.  I was in all the AP classes and on honor roll and I was student body president.  I was also in the band, worked a part-time job, and knew a lot of important people in my town.  I think I sat on a community council or two, and did some service at church.

When I went to BYU as an 18 year old girl, however, it became clear that I was a dime/dozen compared to the girls with far greater musical talent, leadership ability, academic focus, and most clearly at a young and vulnerable age, I was significantly less beautiful.  Don't try to comment on that, it is merely a fact.  If you went to BYU, you know I am not being humble.

Fortunately for me, I was able to quickly find good friends who seemed to love me just for me, to get through that very awkward phase and help usher me into a new era in which laughing and making fun of people having fun together trumped wallowing in self-pity.  

Serving a mission and focusing on others for 18 months of my young adulthood plus having a rewarding career in education has helped me to get over any self-esteem issues regarding my looks--well that and marrying a delusional man who still tells me I am beautiful even when I am wearing a holey T-shirt and yoga pants (a common event.)

Fast forward to the present in which I am suddenly underwhelmed at my life's achievements.  

Women here do not just have 4 children, they have 6...or 8....or 9.

They are fit--they run, they swim, they zumba, they run marathons.  In Paris.

They bake and do homemade crafts.  

They act or sing, run programs, and volunteer in the PTA.

They serve in church and they babysit people's children.  

They blog, they do podcasts, they run businesses.

I wish I could say that I confidently hold up my head and say I am your equal.  But I cannot.  I am intimidated and amazed by these women.

But for now I am going to let the peer pressure wash over me and I hope that I become a little more talented, a little more spiritual, and a little more fit so that I can benefit from the likes of these women and proudly say to those who do not know it is par for the course:

I am Lee Fleming

I have 4 kids.  I zumba.  I bake.  I save schools.  I serve in church and I babysit children.  I blog. I live in Utah and I am a Mormon. 

Why Spring Break is Super Awesome

Americans participate in a wonderful experience called "Spring Break" in which loving mothers everywhere have the opportunity to experience the sheer joy of play.

It has been cute to watch the girls around the house (and periodically Casey when he isn't mercilessly teasing the chicas) and I couldn't help but capture them this morning as they were happily playing.  The video is super blurry, but you get a glimpse of my gimpy little Meg and her magical smile.

Why Spring Break is Super Lame

You know, I used to love Spring Break.  In my former life when I went to college and was in a sorority and drank a lot of alcohol.  I think I must have lived in the 1950s.

In this reincarnation, however, I have apparently moved down a caste.  I have descended to the lowly life of a normal human being who does not understand the impulse to give kids a break midway through the year.

You might be thinking to yourself, but you were a TEACHER. Yes.  Yes I was.  And do you know what I did over spring break?  Grade papers and develop curriculum.  What part of that sounds like a break?

In honor of this pointless, pagan ritual, I am posting a top ten:

Top Ten Quotes Exemplifying Why I Loathe Spring Break

1.  "But, why do we have to go to bed at all if we don't have to get up and go to school?"

2.  "Why do we have to do TWO chores" (this would have pulled at my heart strings as I hate chores myself, but honestly, they didn't even do one so no sympathy after all)

3.  "OWWWW!!!! STOP HITTING ME!!!!"

4.  "Can we watch another movie (after going to the theater)?"

5.  "I am bored."

6.  "But I finished my book!  How can I read any more?"

7.  "OWWWW!! CASEY!!!"

8.  "Can I eat some more of your really awesome special food that you buy for yourself and I normally don't have access to because I am at school?"

9.  "So they canceled all church activities because of Spring Break."

10.  "Can we go somewhere?"

Maybe next year I will take the week off and take my kids to Mexico so they can say things like "Estoy aburrido" and "no me toques, Casey!"

Time Warp

The Happenings

I haven't much to say--I am leaving for NYC this afternoon and it will be my third week in a row gone.  I have to say that I have never felt so at loose ends before.

I love my new place, but I feel like I can't enjoy many of the amenities because I keep leaving.  I also had a very depressing moment in Indiana last week when my bff of all time texted me that she was in Utah for her kids' spring break and I was nowhere to be found.  It was tragic and I cried in my hotel room.  Sadness for me.  I guess that means I need to make a trip to Colorado soon.

Steve and I haven't sat down together to do much of anything because of the maximum three-day stretches we have been together for the last 7 weeks. 

Meghan's broken leg makes everything hard.  I was taking her to the pool during swimming lessons that the older girls had, but those days are over.  She can't move herself, but she can demand, loudly, that she be moved, or that other people provide toys for her.  Thank goodness for older siblings who have stepped up to the plate nicely.  They seem less impatient than I.

I owe a huge thanks to my friend Chellese for getting me started on an exercise routine.  We started getting together twice a week to exercise and she introduced me to Tracy Anderson.  I couldn't link you to anything else because she is always wearing a bikini in her pics, but her mat workout video is amazing and you can see with her Japanese "pretty women" clip that what she does is really different.  I feel like my upper body strength is increasing, evidenced by the fact that I won the Fleming Family Olympics, a new game we started this weekend.  More on that in a minute.  I have taken to doing strength training 3-4 days a week and though I am not getting svelte, I feel a definitely increase in my overall health, and my back no longer hurts when I travel.  Highly recommend Tracy if you don't mind a bit of pop culture and constant reference to how she can make you tiny (not like I am opposed to that goal, but I don't like my daughters hearing that, wish she said "... so that your heart with operate at optimum efficiency and you will feel good inside" but perhaps that motivation is less than the desire to be thin.  Oh, evil society pressures.


Fleming Family Olympics--so on Saturday when the kids were fighting and bored (ahem, Conference on Saturdays, tough) I decided we should do an impromptu competition.  Here is how it works:

--Each person in the family picks a particular competition. 
--You get 30 minutes to "prepare" (so I could clean up the house)
--Bring your stopwatch and your measuring tape so you can assess winners in those categories, along with a pencil and piece of paper to keep track
--Go!!

The activities we prepared:
--Bridget:  take a random object from around the house and decorate it with paper and tape.  The most creative wins (she judged and therefore could not compete in this one).  I of course won because I know how to do something in 6 minutes.  I took the Eiffel Tower and added a bunch of monkeys that I cut out from paper.  Creative, no?

--Casey:  5 trivia questions.  I lost this one because I couldn't remember how many DS games he had or the name of the book he was reading.  Bridget won this one.

--Gillian:  List as many words that rhyme with ees as possible.  Meaning, how many words can you create that end in ees.  There was some fighting as we defined rhyming but in the end, I would have won anyway, not really fair competing with kids, but I will take the wins wherever I can.

--Mama:  Try to build the tallest tower from blocks.  I wish I would have set the timer for this one because Bridget actually made the fastest, tallest building.  When her building fell, Casey scooped up her blocks and then spent about 20 more minutes building a really stable foundation.  He pointed out that I never said they couldn't use the extra blocks from others and there was no time limit. 

We had a great time while Steve was at Priesthood meeting--then on Sunday after Conference, same thing, bored, fighting, etc. so we decided to do round two.  This time Steve was involved so we ended up doing some more physical feats--chicken fighting within the taped area on the carpet, wheelbarrow race, and a series of competitions involving the exercise ball.

Everyone went to bed happy, energized, and when we finally did our family prayer and scripture study at the end, there was NO fighting.  It was magical. I did lie about winning though, Steve actually beat my on Sunday due to the exercise ball competitions--I don't have the upper body strength to pull off the stuff that he did.  I beat my kids though, and that is all that counts.

I am off to NYC this pm of course, my last travel for TWO WHOLE WEEKS, hopefully I will capture some more colorful images of the culture.