Hip Hop SB

OK my motto is, if you can't have fun as a parent, then what's the point? Or at least it is now. So this is how I entertain myself. Make sure your sound is turned on and get ready to rock.


The second verse is the funniest; instead of "baggy sweatpants" she says "Maggie's wet pants" and instead of "she turned around and gave that big booty a slap" I taught her "she turned around and gave that SB a clap" (it fits when you put in her actual name) so it's still pretty G-rated.

Oh- and I wasn't driving during the filming of this. We had just arrived at my mom's house and were parked in her driveway. Just so you don't think I think filming my daughter takes presedence over paying attention to the road while driving. (Jeez, does everything need a disclaimer these days?!)

She also does a mean rendition of James Brown's Get Up Off Of That Thing. Maybe you'll get to see that in a future post.

She is SO going to be the coolest kid in her preschool next month.

On Second Thought...

...maybe I wouldn't make a good pastry chef. I'm pretty sure pastry chefs need to be able to decorate, at least semi-competently. As in write Happy Birthday in loudly colored foodstuffs. I obviously am greatly lacking in skill in this area, as evidenced by this disaster:

Tomorrow is a co-worker's birthday so I tried to personalize his cake. This was even after I tested the icing on my request form for vacation days I'm taking next month. It looks like someone tried to stab it to death, with bright red blobs everywhere on it.

I'm not sure exactly what happened with that second P. It looks more like a chili pepper. Or like it has horrible edema. After that explosion I was laughing so hard that I had to get someone else to come in and do the rest. So I am responsible for HAPP.

Here are just a few of the incredibly supportive and encouraging comments that I received regarding my artwork:

-Don't quit your day job.
-Stick to step.
-Wow, you did that? I thought maybe you let SB write on the cake.
-You should have asked me to do it.
-Cake decorating is definitely not at the top of the list of potential alternate careers for you.

I still laugh every time I look at that picture. It might be my new desktop. At least the cake tasted good.

My Autobiography

There's a very good chance that we might be moving soon. And by soon I mean within the next year. We're trying to get away from our neighborhood, which is slowly but surely being overcome by members of the Russian mafia, Mexican immigrants living 17 to a house, and drug traffickers. So I've been slowly trying to go through my stuff and get rid of anything I haven't really used in the past few years so it's less of a blow later on when it's packing time.

As I was cleaning out my office, a never ending task if there ever was one, I came across a paper I wrote in October 1993. I would have been in 10th grade, I believe. I think the assignment was to write our autobiography as if we were adults, looking back on our lives. The first half was the truth, although I felt the need to highlight impertinent information, like the proximity of one of my houses to a playground, and a leather camel that was given to me by a friend in grade school. The second half was obviously made up. So here's how my life would have been had I stuck to my 10th grade guns and not settled for reality:

The summer after my junior year [in high school] was great. I spent two weeks in France with Mona, a friend of my grandmother's. She was really nice but very strict. After my return, my cousin Mark came to spend 5 weeks with us. We became very close.

OK I'm not sure why I said Mona was strict. Perhaps we got into some arguments when I asked her permission to run off and marry a Frenchman? My cousin Mark lives in England, his whole family does. I would assume that if he came to the US he would have brought his younger sister Marie with him. But apparently I wasn't interested in being close with her.

During my senior year I met Matt. I don't recall how we met, old age has gotten the best of me, but I do remember loving him with all my heart. I had dated before, but nobody had ever meant as much to me as Matt did. We stayed together throughout our senior year, and even during college, as far apart as we were.

I specifically remember choosing the name Matt because at time I didn't really know a Matt, plus my next door neighbor/best friend as a toddler was a boy named Matthew. Did you like how I conveniently developed Alzheimer's to avoid thinking up how I could have met my future husband? Who doesn't remember how they met the love of their life? The teacher even wrote "nice touch" next to that. At the time I thought it was a compliment but now I'm thinking there might have been some sarcasm in there. Hmm.

I had received a full scholarship in writing to Columbia University, the college of my dreams. Matt attended Georgetown University. By the time we'd graduated, we were very much in love and ready to make a commitment. So when he proposed marriage to me, I accepted.

Yeah, Columbia and Georgetown aren't really that far away from each other. It's not like I was on one coast and he was on the other. Our ability to stay together during college isn't really all that impressive. And is "writing" a major? I think it probably has to be more specific that that. Like creative writing, or journalism or something like that. I wouldn't really know, my first degree was in Mass Communications. Not writing.

Our wedding was beautiful. It was a large wedding with all our families and friends. Soon after that, a beautiful baby boy was born. Blond hair, blue eyes, just like his father. We were a happy family until two years later when a sweet little girl was added to the family. She looked a lot like me, her mother, with dark skin, dark eyes and dark hair. Just like my brother, Little Charlie, our son, felt he had to protect his little sister Stephanie. Charlie and Stephanie reminded me of Joe and myself.

Ha! OK first of all I never resolved the whole "we were a happy family until 2 years later..." thing. It sounds like the birth of my daughter Stephanie ruined the happy family. And I'm glad that I pointed out that she looked a lot like me, her mother. In case you forgot I was talking about my own daughter. And I think it's hilarious that I thought that I'd be ready to think about having a second child when the first was only about a year old. When SB was about a year, I was too busy thanking my lucky stars that I made it past the first year to think about a second child! Joe is my brother in real life, by the way. Nice guy....not very protective.

Oh- and how's this for creepy? 2-1/2 years after I wrote this, my father and his wife gave birth to my half-brother, then named him Charlie. Well, Charles. But we all call him Charlie. Yeah. Freaky!

For the first five years of Stephanie's life, Matt went to work every day while I stayed home with the kids. When they were old enough to stay home by themselves, I went to work. I had a job as a journalist for a local paper. It seemed like no time at all before Charlie had grown into a young man and moved out of the house to start a life of his own. Stephanie, herself, wasn't too far behind. I hung on as long as I could but they were adults now, and didn't need their dear old mother. They both got married and moved far away.

Wow, how impressive is that? My kids were supposed to be self-sufficient and responsible enough to stay at home on their own at ages 5 and 7 while I went to work! And why am I so depressing? I'm freaking going through Empty Nest Syndrome at age 15! Their dear old mother? Please! I bet I would be thankful to get Charlie and "Stephanie, herself" out of the house so I could have Matt all to myself again! I'm pretty sure he was hot.

But wait- here's the best part:

The last time I saw them was two years ago at my parents' funeral. They were both killed in a car crash. As I think about it now, I realize that I never got the chance to get to know them as people. I moved out at the age of 17 to go to college, but being a free person for the first time, I forgot all the love they gave me. I forgot about them and ran off to live my own life, writing and calling occasionally. It took me nearly 50 years to realize all my parents sacrificed for me and my brother. And now that I realize it, it's too late. But just like I do, I'm sure they had a special feeling in their hearts, knowing that I appreciated them, even though I never really said it.

OK. So I'm thinking that I was either really pissed off at my mom at the time, or she was pissed at me. I can't imagine why else I would put so much thought into killing off my parents. In a totally unlikely scenario, even! My parents were divorced! (They still are.) The only way that they could have both been killed in a car crash is if one hit the other. That would have been more believable. And they certainly wouldn't have shared a funeral.

And talk about morbid- that's the last time I saw my own two kids? At my parents' tragic funeral? I'm sure if they were somewhere really far away that I would have mentioned that. So they were probably fairly local. So in my teenage angst I was creating a dysfunctional future for myself. At least my daughter looked like me, my son looked like his father, and my husband was hot. I'm sure I said somewhere that he looked like Brad Pitt. It must be on the editing room floor. Oh come on, at least give me that. Can't I have one positive thing in my horrible miserable fabricated life?

All my teacher could really think to comment on this was "sorry".

That's why I took the time to write this. My children are the two dearest things in the world to me, and even though they have never said "thank you for loving me, mom," I want to let them know that they're welcome. I don't want them to have to live the last years of their lives feeling remorse for not being there for their poor old mother until it's too late.

Jeez. The "poor old mother" bit definitely comes from my mom. She's always been very much into the guilting thing. But what a depressing thing for a 15-year old to write. If I were to write it out now, I'd be focusing more on how much money I made and what enormous percentages of that went into creating charities and helping the unfortunate. I'd have to devote at least 2 pages to describing all of my 25 cars and how I hate it when the butler puts too much butter on my bread. I probably wouldn't even think to write in how my parents die.

My teacher's comments at the bottom: My. What a fascinating account of your "life"! You are a very good writer, BMore!

I got 50/50. A+. 100%.

I'm thinking she was on the sauce. How else could you get through 20 students' renditions of their lives en passe, including strict French women, ungrateful children, and hopelessly lonely and remorseful mothers killing off her own parents in a freak car accident?

When I Grow Up...

I'm a lucky gal. There are so many things that I could be. Most presently, I could totally be a chef. Or a baker. No- a pastry chef. I am so unfortunately in the wrong field. Instead of helping people get fit, I could base my career on creating delicious temptations that could potentially make them fat. Like this:



OK so maybe food photographer is not among my many career options. But this piece of heavenly goodness is what I call my peanut butter cookie cake. Oh yes. It has cookie. It has peanut butter. It has chocolate. And it has cake. All in one delicious swirl of cellulite-causing delightfulness. And it's sitting on my kitchen table right now.

Unless the dog got to it.

It started out with an entire 16oz log of chocolate chip cookie dough spread out on a pizza pan, then baked.



This in and of itself is enough to get me excited.

Oh, and the fact that it's sitting on a pizza stone is purely coincidental. I didn't bake the cookie on it. It just doubles as my cooling rack/oven mitt/laptop station/paperweight.

Then combine (natural) peanut butter and vanilla frosting, with a little milk to make the most heavenly peanut butter frosting I've ever tasted. Smear it on top of the cookie. Pour some chocolate cake batter into another pizza pan and bake it. Then once it cools, plop it on top of the cookie/peanut butter frosting yumminess. Then top it all off with chocolate frosting. And you get this: Hint: click on photo for full effect.



So if you look back to the first photo above, you see the corner of a Where's Waldo book. The only incident (if you remember from waaaay back, I have a history of bad baking incidents) was when I tried to remove the cake from the pizza pan before it was ready. It kind of broke in several places. So when the time came for me to plop it on top of the cookie/peanut butter combo, I slid the only thing available that was slim and sturdy underneath to keep all the pieces somewhat together. Whatever, I'm sure the book was clean. It was sitting on the kitchen table, it's not like I dug it out from under the dog's bed or anything. Right?

Stop judging me.

SB's favorite part was eating the cake batter. Does that make me a bad parent because I let her lick the beaters? They were out of the mixer, I promise. No Homer Simpson-esque tongue mangling in the egg beaters.

Anyway, the end result was fantastic. It was just the right amount of cookie, cake and peanut butter to satisfy the fiercest sweet cravings, and then some. I should look into pursuing a career as a pastry chef. But the problem is I would eat all my creations. You know, to make sure they tasted ok.

Seriously. Stop judging me.

By the way, that wasn't completely my "creation" per se because I used a recipe from a book of fun kids' food. But I did create it all myself. Except make the cookie dough and the frosting and the dry cake mix.... OK fine, I mixed, baked, piled and enjoyed. Happy now?

On yet another completely unrelated note, I had another exciting day with SB at the park on Sunday. Looking at the photo, I'm seeing a trend here. I think I'm a little too hands-on for SB's own good. I honestly think that I need to back off. I tend to hover. She needs to learn to play on her own and I need to not worry so much about...blah.....blah......blah......oh, whatever, just look at the photo.

To Anonymous:

First of all, that's great that we both agree that The Avenue is great!

Secondly, I realize that I'm not perfect, and that when I splay my personal stuff all over the Internet, people are going to take advantage of the opportunity to point out all of my imperfections. That is perfectly fine with me, as you can probably see, I'm harder on myself than any third party could be!

But I would hope that anyone who believes so strongly that something I did or said I did was wrong that they have to comment on my behavior in a negative manner will have the respect to put a name to his or her comment.

For many reasons.

I would hope that as civilized respectful adults we do not criticize others unless we ourselves are model citizens. So I would look forward to viewing you as a resource where I could get ideas on how to be a better parent, since you question my competence as a parent, based on the fact that I called a 3-year old girl Little Bitch.

On a side note, I'm not sure how you inferred that from my comments. I don't see exactly what one has to do with the other. This blog is the only place where I referred to that girl as Little Bitch. And last I checked, SB didn't read this blog. I've never said that word in front of SB and I've never talked down another kid to SB. My role as a parent and my thoughts on this blog are two separate things. I'm surprised you didn't realize that.

You may have noticed that I deleted your comment. Not because I was embarrassed or insulted by what you had to say, since I feel I'm doing a pretty good job of paraphrasing your comments right here, but because you chose to remain anonymous, which tells me that you're not confident enough in your statements to stand behind them.

If you had provided your name, I could also have hit you up for ideas on what I could have called the little girl that would have provided the same darkly humorous shock value that Little Bitch did. You do realize that's what I was doing, right? That I don't really think this girl is a bitch, but I was calling her that to add an element of raw black humor? That it wasn't meant to be taken literally?

And yes, I'm fully aware, no- hopeful; thankful, even, that no one is as intrigued by SB as I am. She's my daughter, created by myself and my husband. I would expect no less!

Perhaps no one else has commented on my behavior and childishness because they understand all of this.

My intentions with this blog are not to provide a How To book on raising children. That's what Britney Spears' mother is here for. My intentions are to provide an account of how my life is as the wife of a full-time musician. Of course, bits and pieces from my life as a mother are going to make their way in. That's one part of many that make up who I am. But here on this blog I'm typing it as I think it and I'm not sugar coating anything.

Anyway, bottom line is- I have disabled the Anonymous Commenter device, so any non-anonymous comments are welcome.

Now, if you'll pardon me, apparently I need to go and get a grip and a clue!

Martha Stewart and Birth Control

I decided that since SB is practically 3, she's probably old enough to start helping me make fun stuff in the kitchen. So when I saw a cook book geared towards fun kids' meals at Barnes & Noble yesterday on sale for $8, I went for it. I also got her a little set that contained a pink chef's hat, apron, oven mitt, wooden spoon and rolling pin.

So this morning I went to Giant and bought some of the ingredients needed for a couple of the recipes. The bad thing about it is that now I have sitting on my counter the following temptations: a bag of Reese's cups, a bag of Reese's peanut butter chips, chocolate cake mix, a tub each of vanilla and chocolate frosting, a bag of mashmallows, and a box of Nilla Wafers. And in my fridge is a log of chocolate chip cookie dough. Talk about testing my willpower!

We tried the easier of the two recipes today. SB did ok with her part but ran away when I had to turn on the mixer. Basically this recipe involved mashing together cream cheese, cherry preserves, powdered sugar and vanilla extract, putting that in the fridge to harden somewhat (which didn't happen for some reason), then sandwiching it between two Nilla Wafers for a little cherry cream cheese cookie burger.

This is as far as we got:


SB took one bite and decided she didn't like it. Great. Hopefully TB will because I'm not eating the entire batch! Maybe I can bring it to work for the boys to devour. The cheese stuff would make a good fruit dip, though.

On a completely unrelated note, I officially hate Yaz. I heard nothing but good stuff about it so I asked for it at my last girly doctor visit. Ever since I've been on it, I've alternated between bleeding for 2 weeks straight and spotting for 2 weeks. I'm sick of it. So no more bc. At all. And that's all I'm saying about that. Ask me any questions and you'll get the Blank Stare.

Why Moms Can Be Creepy

My mother recently brought over my Box. My Box is filled with stuff representative of my childhood, like report cards, letters to Santa that must have never made it to the mailbox, journals from school, birthday cards, etc. Basically things that we never really had any use for but she didn't want to throw away. Some moms scrapbook, some moms create mementos, mine just threw everything into a cardboard box kept in the basement. Good thing we never had an issue with pipes leaking through the walls!

While cleaning my office recently I took a break to stroll down memory lane and go through all the stuff in my Box. I was having a great time reminiscing when I came across this:



While I realize that at first glance they look like petrified turds (which what I initially thought they were), upon closer inspection one would discover that these are balls of hair. Human hair, if I had to guess. Stored away in little plastic sandwich baggies. One had a tissue stuffed in it, too. To keep the hair company.

A lock of virgin hair from baby's first hair cut- I understand. (In fact, the hair dresser who cut SB's hair automatically put the locks into an envelope for me to keep. I should probably look for that in case TB tries to use the envelope to mail something like our mortgage payment out in.) These horrid masses were obviously not from my first haircut unless there's some awful family secret involving an Oops! moment between Chewbacca and a werewolf that resulted in my birth. These had to have been taken from some subsequent haircut. Why? I have absolutely no idea. I'm not even 100% sure both of these "locks" are mine.

And did my mother wrap them into these little balls for a reason or did they just sort of morph into them after years of being squished in the basement Box?

The worst part about this all is that despite my disgust at my finding, after taking the above photo, instead of throwing them away, I stuffed the hairballs back into their baggies and put them back in the Box. Maybe one day they'll make their way into SB's Box.

Bay Cafe...Round 2

OMG. They were there. You know who I mean. Them. The Crazy Dancers. Were at the Bay Cafe last night.

Despite all the drama surrounding their last appearance at The Band's gig at the Bay Cafe, the Crazy Dancers were there again last night. I'm not sure why. The good news, at least to me, is that the bass player, who had started all the drama by splashing the Crazy Man with water, went right up to the guy and admitted that he had no excuse for acting the way he did, and apologized. I was elated when he told me this- and a very proud band mama. The funny part was that the Crazy Lady was very obviously unhappy to be there. Like she was there out of obligation, not because she wanted to be. She had a pout on her face the entire time that the trombone player likened to the way my almost 3-year old daughter looks when she doesn't get her way.

They did dance. They did keep it tame. For them. There was still some bumping and grinding. The Crazy Lady wore white biker shorts with black tights underneath. Let's ignore for a moment why I would be looking, but I did not see panty lines, and I'll be honest, that scared me a little. He was wearing red jeans. They did stake their claim on certain seats by placing a bath towel down so no one could sit there (seriously, who does this at a bar?). There was one incident where she bent over with her ass in his crotch that no one needed to witness. But other than that, I think they kept pretty much to themselves.

I was with my friend/dance partner in crime Maggie and her friend Crystal. Maggie sluts me up whenever we go anywhere so my neckline was low and my hemline was high. As we were getting ready, meaning as Maggie was yelling at me to put on more mascara while pulling the top down on my dress to "show more boobs", I got a text message from my husband.

Come to side entrance....go to bouncer named Mike....big black guy....he knows you're coming....

Once I got past the unnecessary dot dot dots, and the ominous ending to the message, I found the description of Mike The Bouncer as a big black guy amusing. I don't really know why.

So we felt mega-important as Mike The Bouncer (who was probably the biggest blackest guy I had ever seen. And by big I don't mean fat.) smiled and let us in. We had to eat inside because the Bay Cafe takes complete advantage of its singularity as the only outdoor waterside bar in Canton and treats patrons like crap, but we ate quickly then mosied on outside to dance.

And dance we did. We met Dave who, although lacking in the fancy footwork department, was well-educated in the importance of a strong lead and the impressiveness of multiple spins. So basically he was really good at whipping us around and making us dizzy, and making it look like we all knew what we were doing.

I was already nervous because the dress I was wearing was shorter than I'm used to, and it was kind of windy right next to the water. So when Dave tugged on my hand and started spinning me around relentlessly, I caught Maggie's eye and silently begged her to make sure I wasn't giving onlookers more of a show than I thought. After the dance, she confirmed that I was unexposed the entire time. So after that bit of reassurance I just loose and had fun. There was one dip involved where I might have inadvertently shown my knickers, but I'm trying not to think about that.

After the gig, the following occurred as Maggie and I were walking around:

Bass player: Hey, The Man wanted me to tell you that he just left to go get the car.

Me: Thanks! I walk a little further, maybe 2 feet, and see the keyboard player motion for me to go to him. As I do, I pass the saxophone player.

Saxophone player: TB's getting the car. He wanted me to tell you.

Me: Thanks, Bass Player just told me. Continue walking to keyboard player, who is about 2 feet away.

Keyboard Player: TB said to tell you he's bringing the car up.

Me: Wow, thanks, you're only like the 17th person to tell me! Saxophone Player and Bass Player both heard this and we all had a good laugh.

I went back to Maggie, then a few minutes later approached Keyboard Player and Sax Player and said:

Hey, do any of you know where TB is?

I'm so cute it's sickening.

Willpower

I used to work for a big old insurance company, where we worked in cubicles, constantly had phones attached to our shoulders and had chronically blurred vision from staring at the monitors in front of us for so long. This was one of my first jobs out of college, so it was before my fitness life yet after I'd already been working out a few years.

I made a few friends there, one in particular was actually one of my best friends for a while. I don't remember much about our friendship at work but I do remember there were a lot of emails sent back and forth that contained phrases such as "blah." and "I hate my job." We only sat a few feet away from each other but it was less distracting to our co-workers if we kept our misery, gossiping and joking to ourselves, so we bonded mostly over email during work hours.

Anyway, my point for going into all this is that I remember one day I ventured over to her desk and noticed a Snickers bar (full-sized, not one of those little bite-sized teasers) sitting in front of her, under her monitor. Right in front of her face. Still in its wrapper, untouched.

I didn't understand.

Why wasn't she eating it? I asked her this and her response was that she wasn't hungry.

I didn't understand.

What did hunger have to do with anything? This is chocolate. You don't have to be hungry to eat chocolate. I rarely am. You don't eat chocolate to satisfy hunger. You eat it because you have to because it tastes good.

This was too much for my feeble brain to handle so I left.

I returned the next day and found, to my shock and horror, that the bar was still sitting on her desk. Why? I asked if she was feeling ok. She was. I asked if her teeth were hurting her. They weren't. I also got a strange look along with her response.

Then why have you not eaten that stick of heaven that is sitting on your desk? If Snicker bars were intended to be used as cubicle decor, then they would have made them prettier. Or put funny sayings on the wrapper.

Despite my complete incomprehension, the bar stayed there a long time. At least a week, if not more. I think she ended up giving it to someone else.

Now if that Snickers bar had been mine, it would have been devoured within about 3 seconds flat. I have no self control when it comes to anything sweet or chocolatey. I have to buy single serving treats when I go to the grocery store or the entire box or bag would be inhaled. Most likely on the way home.

I'm the girl who ate the candy decorations from her wedding that my friends had put aside so I could keep as mementos. Candy mementos? Isn't that why we had photographers and videographers there?

I'm the girl who ate the entire top tier of the wedding cake by herself, which you're supposed to keep until your one-year anniversary, then share with your spouse, immediately after the wedding before leaving for her honeymoon.

I'm the girl whose mother used to have to hide candy around the house in places like inside the couch around Halloween so there would be some left for the Trick or Treaters. And this was even while I was in high school.

So the fact that she was able to sit there and stare at this chocolate bar for as long as she did without breaking down and eating it was beyond my comprehension.

Until now.

I'm so proud to be able to say that this has been sitting on my counter since Sunday.


This is not one of those little bite-sized teaser bags, either. This is a 13-oz bag of chocolatey goodness. I'm not sure how long this will last. But it's definitely a step in the right direction.

The Weekend: Highlights and Lowlights

Lowlight: Friday night I accidentally brushed my teeth with SB's Oral B Phases Winnie the Pooh bubble gum toothpaste. The only part of my mouth that felt clean was the roof. The rest just kind of felt dry and sticky. Note to self: Get SB some new toothpaste. Poor girl.....

Highlight: The Man came to visit me at work on Saturday morning, which made the day go by much faster. I needed it; not a single person came into the Fitness Center for pretty much the entire first hour.

Lowlight: This is how the two last people in the gym spent their last few minutes before closing. Meanwhile, I was grinding my teeth and wondering if these people had TVs in their homes they could watch. I mean, they were both just standing there. I know it looks like the one guy is sitting on a bike, but he was actually standing behind it with his foot up behind the seat. And it wasn't anything exciting, like Michael Phelps winning his 8th gold medal- it was women's badminton. And neither of the players were even American. Lame.



Highlight: Saturday evening the family took a trip to nearby Hunt Valley. On the way home, we passed some horse farms and stopped to let SB get a close look.



Lowlight: This guy felt the need to scratch his butt HARD on the fence. The horse was much stronger than the fence, which caved to scary lengths under the weight of the horse's rear end.



Highlight to the Lowlight: At least one of the horses didn't sneeze on me and get grass snot all over my shirt like last time we stopped....



Another Lowlight (or Highlight): Somehow, and I'm not sure of the exact mechanics of how this happened, I managed to bite my own finger (HARD)while yawning. This could be seen as a highlight, since there's a very good chance I'm the only person in the world who could do this unintentionally.

Highlight: Today we went to a local farm that used to be the Enchanted Forest. It was pretty cool! It had tons of giant scenes from well-known nursery rhymes, a playground, a petting zoo and pony rides. The weather was perfect and the price was right ($4.50/person).

Lowlight: SB threw a tantrum when told it was time to go, so I had to go into this little hut to carry her out. I am short but I am not a dwarf so I smacked my head on the doorframe on my way out. I think my husband got a kick out of it although he tried to hide his laughter.



Highlight to the Lowlight: We had bought some ice cream to cool down with and after about 3 bites, SB decided she didn't want her Oreo Ice Cream Bar anymore, she wanted to go play in the Dwarf House. Bmore Mama scored herself an extra half an ice cream bar!

Lowlight: One of my two guinea pigs died today. Sadly, there is no highlight to this....

Donut Cravings and Running Weirdness

I generally don't work on Fridays. During the school year, my husband teaches a class on Friday mornings, so part of my deal at my job is I'll work Saturdays so I can have Fridays off so we don't have to pay for a sitter. During the summer, when he doesn't have to teach, The Man is usually golfing on Friday mornings. In order to spend some time with his family, especially if he's playing in the evening, he schedules his tee time for fairly early in the morning. So he's usually back around the time SB's taking her nap so we have the afternoon together.

Which means that lately, when I wake up on Fridays, it's just me and SB. For some bizarre reason, every Friday I wake up craving sweets like a madwoman- particularly donuts. I'm a creature of habit and usually stick to my work day routine of a South Beach bar preworkout (like 4am) then eggs and potatoes from the cafe at work post workout. And on Saturdays and Sundays I'm usually able to stick to at least the South Beach bar upon waking part of it. But for some reason, on Fridays, I need something sweet.

And this morning was no different. I couldn't tell you the last time I had a donut. In the past, I've been able to tame my donut craving by either having some cookies or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but we had nothing here in the house that could suffice. But SB was uninterested in donuts (seriously, whose child is this??). Every time I asked her if she wanted to go to the donut store, she said no.

I should maybe mention here that there is a Dunkin Donuts at the end of my street. Maybe about a tenth of a mile away? But I have some crazy willpower and have probably been there a total of 3 times since we moved in 6 years ago. And I'm pretty sure at least 2 of those times were to get bagels for my friend Bucky and bring them to her at work. Yeah, I rock.

So I really wanted this donut. Today was a running day and I completely had myself convinced that I needed the energy from the donut to run. Fully aware that something like, oh, a baked potato or some pasta would probably be more efficient than a donut, my sneaky mind made me confident that I needed the immediate energy all the sugar would provide. And then the crash later would help when it was nap time. Oh yes, I had it all worked out. My body needed that donut. I couldn't function without it.

Anyway I suffered quietly all morning, begging Sophie every hour or two, until finally I told her we were going to Giant. To get donuts. She agreed.

By that time I kind of was over my craving, but I got a donut anyway. Even though she had originally said she didn't want one, SB decided to get one too. So once we got home and I put all the other groceries away, we sat down and ate our donuts.

Looking at SB's setup, I remember how something so simple like milk in a monkey cup with a straw, and a chocolate donut with sprinkles could be so comforting.

I know it's a huge no-no to look to food for comfort, but come on. Milk in a monkey cup. What could be better than that? I'm seriously thinking about going out and buying my own monkey cup to put my water in, since I'm not a huge milk drinker, and I don't do coffee. Maybe I'll get one of those special swirly straws, or one that changes color as the beverage goes through it.

Anyway, on a completely unrelated note...

...I have certain things that must be in place in order for me to have a successful run. My hair has to be completely pulled back tightly and off my face. I can have a ponytail with the hair bouncing around my neck, but no stray strands can be anywhere near my face or ears. If I'm on the treadmill, it can't squeak or rattle. It drives me nuts and that's all I think about. It can't shake, either. I have to be wearing completely tight clothes. If I'm at home on the treadmill, that means biker shorts or leggings and a cami top (over my sports bra, of course, not by itself). If I'm out in public, then I can deal with a kind of tight t-shirt. Nothing that hangs anywhere or droops or sags or bags or anything. My shoes have to be laced to equal tightness, and the laces can't bounce off or touch anything.

There's more, but because I know you're already calling me a freak I'm not going to go into the really weird ones. Some might call it excuses, but I don't, because if all those things are in place, which I make sure they are, then I do fine with my running. I can't remember the last time I quit in the middle of a run because of any of my little running needs weren't met. It just takes a little planning on my part.

The point of going into all this? No one sees me in my running garb at home. I'm way more conservative than to prance around in what could easily be mistaken for a unitard. I was on my way downstairs to run today when SB mentioned a toy that I had bought for her at Giant but had accidentally left in the truck. Without thinking I grabbed the keys and went outside to get the toy. On my way out, I noticed some random guy walking down my street looking at me weirdly. I figured he was just a nut and went on my way. Then on the way back in, two men standing in my next door neighbor's driveway (the Mexicans, not the Russian mafia) were staring at me.

It wasn't until I got inside that I realized what they were staring at. Leggings with a sports bra and a cami top. Not leaving much to the imagination. I guess some could say they kind of got a show. Personally, I feel sorry that they had to be exposed to that...that outfit was something no one should have to see!

Proud Mama

This is why 3-year olds should not be left alone. Ever.

I went downstairs for about ONE MINUTE to put a load of laundry in the washing machine. I was gone for all of ONE MINUTE. I left SB in my bedroom, since she usually just kind of flops around on the bed when she's in there.

Somehow, in the span of that ONE MINUTE, she was able to get down off the bed, go into the top drawer of my night stand and create this conglomeration of dental floss and two different sets of earphones. This should be fun to detangle.

And don't ask me why I have dental floss in my night stand.

My Day Off

As I mentioned in my last post, I took today off from work. I wanted today to be a relaxing yet productive day. I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish. This included:
-Going for a run outside- a leisurely run that didn't end with my wishing I could puke
-Lifting weights- today was an upper body day
-An abs workout- I tend to neglect them

OK so maybe this was a selfish list. But I wanted to feel good about myself today, not feel like a sloth like I tend to on my days off. And I wanted to do these things without guilt and without rushing.

So after waking up with SB at around 7am and listening to her whine for 2 hours, I was able to sneak off and get in a good upper body workout at the gym. I headed home and we all went to the park.

I am a very hands-on parent, as you can see below.


We went home, napped, and then I went for my run.

I've been running a lot lately but it's all been on the treadmill. My goal today running outside was to take my time and just enjoy the nice weather and not really push myself. I thought it would be a good idea to take the dog with me. Because she needs exercise too.

So for the first mile, this was my view:

After the first mile-long loop, the poor thing was getting tired out so I dropped her off at home and continued on the remainder of the three miles alone.

I ran into the Crazy Man who lives around the corner. He's kind of creepy. When SB was little, I mean really little, I walked her around the neighborhood in her stroller like a madwoman. We'd go for hour-long walks every day. Partially because I was stir crazy and partially because I needed the exercise. Babies have the strangest tendency to lose their socks. Even if they're fast asleep and the socks fit perfectly, when she wakes up, somehow one little foot is bare.

So Crazy Man apparently found SB's sock. He asked if it was ours, and I said no, because he scares me and I didn't want to have to go near him to get it. So then he sticks it on his front porch. So for the next month or so, every time we passed his house, we would see this single baby's sock sticking up out of one of the banisters on his porch. Weird.

Anyway, after dropping the pooch off at home, all I had to concentrate on was the sounds of my awesome running shoes on the sidewalk.


All in all, a very relaxing day. I should really take more days off!

Body Worlds

Last night, my husband and I had the opportunity to have another date night! So that's two so far this year! We decided to head down to Baltimore's Inner Harbor and check out the Bodyworlds 2 exhibit at the science center. Because nothing says romance like a bunch of petrified cadavers with the skin ripped off, frozen in various poses! (This photo on the left was taken from the Body Worlds website, and was not part of the exhibit that I saw.)

It was actually an interesting exhibit. It kind of put things into perspective that learning from textbooks and even movies couldn't do. The most interesting part for me was the nerves. For some reason, they never really clicked until I saw them on these plastinates. Now I have a better perspective on how, when someone has sciatica, it can affect certain movements.

The lady at the ticket booth had advised me that the exhibit could take anywhere from 1-1/2 to 3 hours to walk through. We kind of hurried through because our parking meter was due to expire after about 2 hours. We ended up finishing in about an hour. So we decided to walk around the Inner Harbor since it was such a gorgeous evening.

We got some frozen yogurt before heading back to the car. Since we had another hour or so of babysitting services, we stopped by Tony Roma's for a salad before heading home. I know, we did dinner and dessert in reverse, but it was a rare date night so we were permitted.

So yeah, not exactly the epitome of excitement. But it was a nice relaxing end to the weekend. I took the day off work today, just because, and it's another gorgeous day so we'll probably spend lots of time outside.

Medicated

I can't swallow pills.

At least, not very easily. Recently, as in the past few years, I've become a bit more comfortable popping pills that are reasonably sized and/or gel coated. But Those huge vitaminy pills that smell like butt and you can actually taste the vitamin flavor? Forget it.

I've always had problems with this. I remember being sick in middle school, and my mother was still bringing me chewable aspirin. I think back then, I just didn't know how to do it. Later on, in high school, I got a sinus infection coupled with bronchitis, or something like that, and had to take antibiotics. Apparently they didn't come in chewables so I would spend about 10 minutes every evening psyching myself up for a fit of gagging.

A lot of pills got ruined that way.

I don't throw up, so at worst, I'll just gag my brains out and the pill will just kind of dissolve in my mouth. Sometimes, if the pill actually started to go down, usually by accident, the gagging will bring it back up.

I have similar issues with cough medicine. It just won't go down. Somehow instead of oozing down my throat like it's supposed to, it ends up being projected across the room. I'm not sure of the exact mechanisms surrounding this phenomenon. I usually try to avoid it.

I warned my husband for many years about my inability to take medication. I don't think he believed me. I think he called me a baby.

One winter, when we were first dating, I got sick. My cough was turning into that deep hacking cough, and I think it was annoying him more than anything else because it seemed to be consistently occurring at precisely the same moment as important dialogue in the movie we were trying to watch.

He announced I was going to take my medicine. He bundled me up and brought me to the drugstore. I argued the entire way, but was way too sick to really protest with my full effort. I think I said something really threatening, like "OK but you'll be sorry...."

He let me choose my drug. Since morphine wasn't an option, I chose a liquid cough syrup in an attractive color and flavor. I don't remember specifically which one it was, but I remember that I shook a lot of bottles to determine which was the thinnest mixture, and went with that one.

We went back home and my husband poured out the dosage into the little plastic cup. He sat it in front of me on the kitchen table. I timidly picked it up and stuck the tip of my tongue into the syrup.

My husband told me that's not the way to do it. He announced that I need to chug it all at one time. He told me to hold my nose, tilt my head back and just pour it down.

I still wasn't sure about this. I stuck my tongue a little farther in, and jerked my head back in disgust upon actually tasting the medicine flavor. By this time, my husband was sitting next to me at the table, saying Do it. Just do it. Do it. Chug it. Now. All at once." He was saying it really intensely, and leaning forward and pounding his fist on the table.

Finally I gave in. I looked up, pinched my nose, closed my eyes, opened my mouth and prayed for the best. The liquid slowly oozed into my mouth. I tried to swallow, but was unable. I kept trying, but my throat was glued shut. The concept of what was actually in my mouth occurred to me and I immediately started gagging.

Cough syrup went everywhere. Down my chin, into my hands, into my lap, onto the table, the floor. I think there might have been some coming out of my nose. My throat was on fire, and my nose hurt too. So I did what any normal twenty-something year old would do at this point. I started bawling.

Needless to say, my husband felt awful. Here was his girlfriend who had warned him that she doesn't do well taking medicines, and when he practically forces them down her throat she gags all over the place and ends up crying.

He cleaned up the mess, settled me back down on the couch and went out to try to get some cough drops. Those I can take. He returned with not only the cough drops, but also a box of Sudafed Cold and Cough. He said he wouldn't blame me if I didn't want to try, but maybe these would help. They were liquid gels, which I can do sometimes.

I swallowed them down (he didn't make fun of me for putting them all the way on the back of my tongue, filling my mouth up with soda, then vigorously shaking my head and swallowing the whole thing) and we continued to watch our movie.

About 10 minutes later I said I was going to bed because my face felt itchy. Once I brushed my teeth and settled down, I realized that I felt something funny in my throat every time I swallowed. I called my husband into the room, and he looked at my throat with a flashlight.

Hives. I had broken out into hives, and there was one on my uvula. I slowly drank a glass of ice water to keep it from getting bigger and closing up my airway while he called the pharmacist. Eventually the hives went away and I was able to fall asleep. I went the remainder of this cold unmedicated.

When I was pregnant, I had to hide the prenatals, which are freakin horse pills and do not come in gel caps, in yogurt and drink it with milk or Nestle Quick to get it down. Sometimes it took several tries but I did what I had to do. Other than that, I was still taking Centrum chewables as my multi up until recently.

I went through a phase in the past year or so where I was feeling miserable. I had just taken myself off an inhuman dose of antidepressants, which left me zombie-like. I evaluated my diet and decided that supplementing might not be a bad idea, since my diet lacks a lot.

So every morning I take a multivitamin, 2 fish oil, 2 digestive enzymes, and 2 5-HTP. The fish oil pills, which I have been avoiding taking for years since it's freakin fish oil, are huge but gel-coated and lightly flavored with lemon to avoid "fish burps." The digestive enzymes are not huge but they are not gel-coated, so they taste tinny and vitaminy. And the multivitamins are ginormous capsules but smell horrible and you can see the little grains of the vitamins and minerals all crushed up and completely grosses me out. The 5-HTP are small capsules- the only one in the group I could actually take with plain water if need be.

Here's my method: Every morning I take a little cup of pudding down with me when I go to take my pills. I take a spoonful of the pudding and insert a pill into it then cover it up with more pudding. Larger pills go first so there's enough pudding to last, and if I should run out for some reason, I'm not stuck with the monster pills to suck down. I put the pudding in my mouth and, making sure that no part of the pill touches my mouth, swallow it all down in one go.

I get made fun of to no end by the few people who know of my procedure. But it certainly works better than gagging everything up.

Ice Chewers are Evil

If there is a Hell and I go there after I die, I can tell you exactly who my roommate will be. It will be an ice chewer.

I don't attach any meaning to people chewing ice. I know there are rumors going around that if you chew ice then you are deficient in iron or sexually frustrated. I don't care about all that. All I care about is that ice was not meant to be chewed.

The few times that I have crunched ice, chills go down my spine. In fact, I have goosebumps just from typing that and thinking about it. And when other people do it, and I hear it, the same thing happens. I don't like that other people's actions can have such an effect on my own body.

I never realized how much this irritated me until after college. One of my first "real" jobs was as a claims adjuster for an insurance company. To train us on proper phone etiquette they felt it was imperative to send us to Chicago for a week. In the classroom, we all sat around in a big semi-circle. About one hour into the first day, I realized that it was going to be a very long week. Because the lady next to me (I was second to the end, and she was on the end) was an Ice Chewer. There weren't any assigned seats or anything, but human nature appears to encourage us to take the same seats every day. So I was stuck. Every single day she would have this huge cup of ice and would just sit there chomping on it. I would sit there, writhing in my seat, freezing cold and trying to rub my goosebumps off. People probably thought I had some sort of tic where I was constantly rubbing my skin.

My husband (who was only my boyfriend at the time) would laugh at me every night as I complained to him. To him, it's not a big deal. The sound of ice crunching against teeth does not affect him.

Fast forward to maybe 2 years later. I had decided by this point that I do not want to work in an office setting, and was going to school during the day to take some prerequisites so I could go for a master's degree in something more interesting. I got a night job working at the desk in the Emergency Room of a hospital. This was an interesting experience.

I get along with pretty much all types. But I've never really been the minority anywhere. Here, I was the only one under 30, the only one who weighed less than 250lbs, the only one with a college degree, and the only white girl. I pretty much got along with everyone at first, but it was freakin West Side Story behind the desk there. Lisa and Andrea hated each other. So you were either friends with Lisa or Andrea. You were allowed to tolerate the other, but not be her friend. As the new girl, both teams wanted me on their side. But I refused to decide. I preferred to remain neutral.

Part of the job involved me working the desk alone, and part involved me working with 1 or 2 of the other girls. I LOVED working alone. Always have, always will. And if I was working with 2 girls from the same team, it was ok. We would communicate, there might be some joking around. It actually felt normal.

If I was working with girls from opposing teams, it was very unpleasant. The silence behind the desk was deafening. They wouldn't even want to talk with me, for fear that the other girl would listen and report back to her team. If it happened that they bumped into each other, which was pretty much inevitable with 3 women (2 of them being over 200lbs each) working behind one big desk in a busy emergency room, the death stares would come out and I would duck behind a doctor or a nurse, waiting for the claws to come out.

Each girl tried to "take me under her wing" and show me the ropes and be extra nice to me. I might have been young (maybe 22?) but I was smart. Much smarter than all of them. I could tell they were being phony, and just didn't want me to be able to say anything negative about them to anyone on the other team.

It only took a few months before my side was chosen for me. Lisa was an Ice Chewer. She would sit there with a portable heater blowing right on her, chewing her ice and clacking away at her keyboard with her 1.5" long candy pink nails (which were against hospital dress code and kind of a fire hazard, not to mention gross and nasty). I very quickly began dreading my evenings with her. I used to have a pretty fast metabolism. I was always hot. Even in the cold ER, I was comfortable in just my scrubs. All these fat women would come in with their portable heaters burning the place up, with jackets on over their scrubs, complaining of how they were anemic and therefore always cold. I hated it. As soon as they all left and I was alone I would shut off all the heaters and throw them away from behind the desk.

Anyway, in addition to being an Ice Chewer, Lisa was also lazy. She would let her work pile up, never answer the phone, and would just sit there chatting away with her work bff, Carla. They manipulated the schedule so they could work together all the time. I hated it. One evening, for some random reason, Lisa said she was just going to let me answer the phone. I didn't mean to sound snotty about it, but I couldn't help but retort "But I already am."

Big mistake.

Her eyes narrowed. She stared at me through the slits for a good minute before turning back to her computer without a word.

Uh-oh.

I really didn't want to become part of the drama. But I couldn't help it. Months and months of incessant ice chewing had worn me down and I hated her. I seriously wanted to take her giant cup of ice and throw it at her.

From that point on, Lisa made it a point to make my life miserable. She's the reason that I eventually quit there, even though I rarely had to work with her after that. I later heard that she was going on to nursing school, which scares me to no end. I could totally see her casually putting arsenic into the IV of someone who was there for something as routine as an MRI, just because they asked her to fluff their pillow.

Personally, I believe it was all the ice chewing that made her so evil.

Invincible. And I Got Back.

Sometimes I think I am superwoman. Like the time I ate all that frosting then tried to run? I do stupid things thinking there will be no consequence. Then I get surprised when things don't turn out the way I planned.

So today I slept in. I did something in the past few days that has been causing my hamstrings and inner thighs to scream bloody murder. Constantly. I think it might have been the fact that I taught step classes 2 days in a row, and on the second day also taught a bodysculpt class where I felt the need to turn everyone's legs into rubber bands. Or at least my own. So yesterday when I stumbled into the gym at 5am in my sleep deprived stupor and found my way over to the leg press machine, I was actually surprised to find that my legs were dangerously close to collapsing at about the 6th rep of my first set.

So I gave in, because I'm all about listening to my body, and spent the remainder of the lonely predawn hour until the center opened trying to make my brain bigger on face book. I didn't have to teach any classes yesterday, which, despite making me feel like a sloth, was probably a good thing for my aching legs. But then, my amazingly retarded brain thought it was a good idea to keep with my scheduled cardio session of 20 minutes of high intensity intervals on the treadmill. Don't ask me to explain it. But somehow it made sense to run ridiculously fast for half of 20 minutes on tired aching sore legs. But I got sidetracked when I got home from work and ended up unable to do this until 7:45pm. But of course, even that late into the evening, running my ass off on a treadmill until I saw stars still seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

So onto the treadmill I go. I'm not exactly tall and my legs are quite stubby. So for me, high intensity means intervals running at 8.5-9.5mph. For me, this is fast. At 20 minutes, I actually didn't feel like I was quite dead enough yet so I pushed myself to 23 minutes. Finally satisfied with my proximity to puking my brains out, I stopped the madness and went on with my evening.

Like a moron I planned to go to work early this morning to finish my leg workout that I had dropped yesterday. When the alarm went off at 4:20am I flexed my leg, felt the pain, and reset the alarm to 5:20 without ever taking my head off the pillow. Sometimes the brain works like a normal human being's. Sometimes.

So I taught a 45-minute Step Class From Hell and then caked my hamstrings with Icy Hot, thinking the poor guys could finally get a little rest.

Enter LPP.

LPP is probably one of the most adorable and nicest people who works for the company whose fitness center I work in. He's also an amazing dancer, but that's another story. He's on the company's rowing team. Part of their "homework" to ensure a winning season is to complete 2 2000-meter rows on the indoor rowing machines per week. At least I think it's 2. Either way, he was there to do his. His personal goal set for him by the team workout expert was 7:45. Being the awesome friend that I am, I set the more prestigious goal of "Under 7:30" and told him I would personally cheer him on while he rowed. He didn't look as thrilled about that as I'm sure he felt but I shooed him into the locker room to go change since my work day was nearing its end.

Some time between him leaving my desk and him starting to row, I got it in my head that I'd do the 2000 meters with him. Although I have a master's degree in exercise science and plenty of experience in fitness centers and gyms, I have never actually rowed on a rowing machine. So LPP strapped me in, gave me a couple of pointers, set up the timer for 2km, detached his iPod, declaring that I would be enough entertainment for him, and sat on his rower next to me.

We took off. Two cycles? rows? seconds? into it I let out my first "Are we there yet?" This is much tougher than it looks. I felt like I was singlehandedly pulling an entire fleet of the Volga Boat Men. Each of whom was carrying 4 elephants on his shoulders. While sitting on the boat, which was sitting in gravel. But I persevered. 8 minutes, 49.2 seconds later I was sitting on my rower, panting away like a dog in the Sahara. My entire shirt was soaked. My head was throbbing. My back felt as if there was a razor the size of a briefcase sticking out from between my shoulder blades. LPP (who finished in 7:31) had a vein sticking out of his forehead so far that it looked downright vericose and I secretly wondered if we had any Coumadin in the First Aid box.

I actually seriously debated quitting after the first 500m but there's no way in hell I would actually stand people knowing that I did that. The bright side was that I conferred with another member of the rowing team who convinced me that my time was not only good for a girl in general, but also pretty impressive for someone who had never rowed before in her life. Not necessarily as compared to competitive rowers, but the average population, I guess. That almost makes up for the next 5 hours of my life.

Fast forward to 3 hours later. I'm sitting at home guzzling water and wondering why the skin on my forehead feels like it's going to pop off and molten lava is going to ooze out from the resulting hole, as well as from my eyes and ears. I don't know why I'm so shocked that after all the crap I've put my body through the past few days, I wouldn't feel 100% wonderful after putting everything I had into almost 9 minutes of intense exercise on a machine I'd never done before. But I am. The weird thing is that I almost feel like I need to do something else tonight. Like go for a quick run on the treadmill or put in a yoga dvd or something.

I think there's something wrong with me.

I should maybe see someone to help rid myself of these masochistic tendencies.

Anyway, since you suffered through all that, I'll treat you to another (quick- I promise) work story that I personally find quite amusing.

So I'm sitting there this morning, flirting discussing very important fitness theories with a good friend (a guy) who works out in the fitness center. In walks another friend, who I always appreciate for changing the television station from ESPN (stupid Blank Stare and his stupid world of sports) to Regis and Kelly, even though he hates Kelly. Today, he was too late to help me and I was forced all morning to listen to everyone talk about Brett Favre being sold or bartered or whored out, or whatever they call it, to the Jets.

So of course as soon as he walks in, I completely ignore whatever my first friend was saying and yell at this guy for coming in too late, proclaiming that he is completely useless to me. All in good fun, of course.

He approaches me and my friend (and as far as I know, they don't know each other except for seeing the other in the gym on occasion) and says "Well what prevented you from getting up off of that fine little ass of yours and changing the channel yourself?"

I didn't react to his comment except to say something I'm sure was completely brilliant and witty about why I didn't, and he moved on to the locker room to change. A moment later, my first friend turned to me and said "Did that guy just say that fine little ass of yours?"

I'm not easily offended, no matter what the shape or condition of my ass. You can pretty much say whatever to me. But keep in mind that this is a corporate fitness center. This guy could have gotten into a lot of trouble for saying that if the wrong person heard him. Yet he was bold enough to say it in front of my friend, who could have very well been the head of Human Resources for the company.

Funny.

Ok maybe not freakin hysterical, but my ass got its props so I have to share.

August Update

OK so I know it seems like I've been neglecting the blogging world for a bit. I actually haven't. There were several posts that I gave birth to, then quickly abandoned in the dumpster or at best gave up for adoption. I just haven't had the attention span to actually finish a post. But now I have pictures piling up on my phone, using up all the precious memory, so I have to do something with them. And with that, my friends, you have my past week or so, in a nutshell, in photos.

In a very random order.

This is my arm.

A few people at work saw it and immediately assumed I fell on the treadmill again. Jeez, guess I'm going to have a hard time living that one down. I actually did it somehow on the fence while mowing the lawn last night.

Yes, I said mowing the lawn. I get very pissed off at The Man if he even suggests he do it one week. When I was young, my brother and I had chores assigned to each of us. Being two years older, and the boy, one of his chores was to mow the lawn, once he got old enough. I had stupid stuff like cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming the living room, etc. But the chore that I absolutely couldn't stand doing was emptying the dishwasher. I still hate it. There's just something about the taking stuff out of the washer to put it away in strategically designated spots that are of the utmost efficiency since all the cabinets were jam-packed, only to have to take the stuff out again in a few hours to use at dinner. I hated it.

So I traded mowing the lawn for emptying the dishwasher. I think my brother was glad to get that off his plate, since he's a computer geek who shrinks away from the sun and the outdoors, and stays up all hours of the night on Face Book doing crap on his computer. But that's another post in and of itself.

And I've been mowing ever since. When I was pregnant, I tried to mow the lawn once or twice at the beginning of the summer. SB was born in September, so in May I was about 5 months pregnant? Just beginning to show, I guess. I didn't think it was a big deal. Besides the twisting to start the mower, all I had to do was push it in front of me. It's a self-propelled mower. When my husband found out, he went completely ballistic on me, and finally begged me not to mow since he felt that having his pregnant wife mow our lawn would make him look bad to the neighbors. I gave in but took it up again the following spring. I really like doing it because not only does it offer instant gratification, which we all know I'm a huge fan of, but it gives me something mindless to do with my body and let my mind wander all over the place.

Anyway, so that was the result of me mowing the lawn. This is what kept me at work for about 10 minutes this evening. I was already irritated because some nitwit decided to go into the locker room just at 7:30, which is when we close (in case you didn't already know that from previous rants) and he's done it before and I consider it flat-out rude. So I'm still grumbling about his audacity and I walk up to my car and notice this little guy hanging out underneath.

Call me a treehugger, bunny lover, animal freak, whatever you want, I've heard it all. But I am a complete and utter fool when it comes to animals. I will do stupid things that potentially could put my own life in danger to save a spider from being sucked up the vacuum, or to avoid mowing over a bee. So there's no way in heck I was going to just get in my car and leave with him sitting there. So I stomped really loudly to startle him into flying away, but he just walked to the other side of the car and settled down again. So I went around to the other side and stomped again. I kneeled down and took a peek to see that he hadn't budged. At this point, he was sitting just inside, next to the tire. So I slapped my palms onto the ground (ow!) loudly (which is very difficult when you're talking human palms and concrete) and he just kind of looked at me. I swear he looked a little pissed. I stood up and kicked the tire and he just got up and walked back over to where he was to begin with.

So back and forth we went, probably about 5 times, no joke. Finally I kneeled down one time and I didn't see him. I went around to the other side of the car and looked, but he was nowhere to be found. I started to get in the car, thankful he had finally taken the hint, then realized that he might have flown up into the car. Like where the engine was.

Great. I got out of the car and started banging on all the doors. Security was probably doubled up laughing in their little Big Brother headquarters. I looked like a total nut and glanced over at the entrance of the garage to make sure no one was around. As I did, I noticed my little feathered friend about 30 yards away, slowly walking away. So he was nowhere near the car the whole time- I was banging away for nothing. Too relieved the whole ordeal was over to feel stupid, I got into my car and drove home- almost getting a ticket. For those of you who work where I do, if you pass the Hilton, beware. Apparently its entrance is the new location for a speedtrap.

So.......what else? Oh! Here's how my weekend began: My mother was born in Iran. (Actually, that happened way before this weekend. But I felt the need to give you a little history lesson first. So just bear with me.) Her parents were Armenian and Syrian. My father's mother and father were from Italy and Poland, respectively. You can probably guess that I'm a pretty dark person. No, I mean physically. I have really dark hair. And a lot of it. In some places, that's a good thing. In some places, it's not so good.

Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about my eyebrows. Some time between middle school and high school, I realized that most of the girls in my class had 2 eyebrows, while I just seemed to have one that kind of meshed into my hairline anyway. Some might call it a unibrow. I called it hideous. So I begged my mom to let me start plucking my eyebrows. She agreed and I holed myself in her bathroom one afternoon and plucked away.

Now for those of you who have never had to do this, it's not as easy as it sounds. There's a natural arch that you actually have to stick to. If you don't, you could end up looking like Jafar. Or, if you overpluck from the inside arch, then you could end up with an eternal look of surprise on your face, like this.


I was lucky enough to be blessed with not only the Look of Eternal Surprise, but also the uneven look. It was quite hot. I guess you could say it was kind of a combination of the above two looks, but with one brow the thickness of my pinky finger and the other the size of a string. Those were some tough years for me.

But some time in college I got smart and decided to let someone else tame the locks for me. So for the past 10 years I've been getting my eyebrows waxed, or "ripped out of my head" as I like to call it. In my defense, the many ladies that I have seen over the years all agree that I have problem brows. Not only are the hairs very thick and curly, but each brow has a cowlick in it (did you know eyebrows could have cowlicks?) and one has a scar just on top of it from when I walked into a coffee table (give me a break, I was just learning how to walk). So it's not my fault I looked awful for a good part of my teenage life.

Anyway, getting back to this weekend. So on Thursday I had a waxing appointment. I've been to this lady before and she's pretty good. Nothing unusual happened, everything seemed to go well. Friday morning, if anyone tried to make eye contact with me, they would have seen this:

This photo actually doesn't do it justice. (And actually, the eyebrow looks better than in this shot, too.) It was horribly bright and red and scabbed over. Luckily, I didn't have to go too many places on Friday that I couldn't hide behind sunglasses. Then Saturday I just had to get through work with this hideousness. I put Neosporin on all weekend and Saturday night it just kind of peeled off. It's still kind of pink now but not as noticeable.

OK I think that's about all I have to report for now. It's been an interesting coupla days. Hopefully the next few will be as interesting, but with less injury involved!