WatchOutForThisOne

The End

2009-11-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

I forgot to post on Monday. I remembered it the next morning, and went "oh well."

Yesterday I thought about the fact that I hadn't posted before I shut the computer off for the night, but thought, "well, I already missed yesterday, so what difference does it make?"

Today I'm posting to explain the last couple of days, but really - NaBloPoMo is over for me. Not only that, I think this whole blog is over for me. I just don't really want to write about my life here anymore. I'm not sure why. Maybe now that I have J in my life and am overall pretty happy, there's no reason to? I don't know.

But I feel safe in saying this is the end of my updates here at WatchOutForThisOne. Thanks for reading, to those of you who have - it always meant a lot to me when I'd get a comment or an e-mail from you.

I am still going to be writing on my diet blog from time to time, but that's mostly just for me, to help me work out the food related demons in my head, so I don't mind if you aren't reading it. Feel free to stop in if you want to, though.

Good-bye!

Christmas in November!

2009-11-15T17:04:00.000-08:00

Something so exciting happened today! Santa Claus came!

Okay, no he didn't. But there was still a great gift purchased! J handed me the Target ad for this week, and on the second page was the thing I've wanted for so long! A Kitchen Aid stand mixer! And J said to get ready, and he'd take me to get it, and he did! It's sitting in our dining room right now. I don't get it until Christmas, but I got to open it up today and make sure it works, which it does, and woo!

I'm so excited! Is it Christmas yet? :D

Eeeeee! So excited!

Just a Quiet, Boring Saturday

2009-11-14T19:28:00.000-08:00

I had a quiet Saturday. J was at work this morning, so I basically hung around the house. I did some laundry, watched some TV, played some Sims 3.

Oh yeah, and then I tried to open the blinds in the bathroom, but they fell down. So I took that opportunity to vacuum out the inside of the window (spiders tend to get in there, because it's an old window with plenty of spaces for them to squeeze through). I cleaned up a bunch of webs, one small spider and something that looked eerily like a nest meant for hatching babies, and then I carefully took the curtain down that hangs over the blinds, expecting the whole time for a huge spider to jump out and attack me, but it was clear. I gingerly put it in the wash, then I put it in the dryer, and then about 15 minutes before J got home, I took it out of the dryer and went to hang it up. I got it on the curtain rod, holding it carefully and looking at the openings the whole time, because I've had spiders hide in the back of the metal rods on me before. All seemed clear, though.

Can you tell where this is going?

So, I get the curtain on the rod, and I get the rod back on its hook, and then I'm straightening the curtain out, to spread it out evenly over the rod and center it. I'm standing on the toilet, so I'm at curtain rod height, just about. I'm straightening it up...and a huge effing spider falls down right in front of my face.

HUGE!

I basically flew out into the living room, then proceeded to say fuck a lot, while patting my hair and clothes down to make sure there weren't any on me. (I get paranoid about spiders - I see one, and then suddenly I feel like they must be everywhere.)

I couldn't face it. It was too scary. So I stood in the living room window, cussing every car that went by that wasn't J, and then cheering when he finally pulled into the driveway.

He smooshed it for me. He felt it go pop. I was very happy. Then we went to Burger King for dinner, then we went to Walmart for groceries, then I read my book for a while, then I watched some Laverne & Shirley season one while playing the Sims 3.

So yeah, it was just your basic quiet, boring Saturday. :P

Three Car Garage

2009-11-13T16:03:00.000-08:00

Our house has a two car attached garage. It's a two car garage, but it's very roomy inside, and for a long time now J has been convinced that he could fit all three of our vehicles into the garage, if only we could get enough of the crap cleaned out.

Well, this spring I had a whole truckload of junk taken to the dump, and J has done a lot of work to clean out a lot more stuff. And tonight his dream came true. Behold, our three car garage:

The picture is dark, even with the garage lights on, but here you go - J's truck, my car, J's car. :) You did it, J!

Mmm, Milk

2009-11-12T17:58:00.000-08:00

I have always loved drinking milk. I grew up having a glass of white milk with dinner every single night - and I wasn't forced to drink it. I wanted to drink it. It's so good!

So when I started having digestive problems (ahem) when I was about 30, and finally found out from my doctor that the problem was lactose intolerance, I was seriously sad. What, no more drinking milk? No more ice cream? No more cheese? Say it ain't so!

Well, I eventually figured out that I can still eat ice cream, and cheese. I can't drink regular milk, but there are lactose free milk products on the market. There's just one problem - lactose free milk is so bad! It's very sweet (a result of the process they use to remove the lactose, and of what they replace it with). It tastes okay with chocolate in it, and recipes prepared with it taste fine, but to just drink a glass of it, without chocolate? Ick. No thanks.

But then a few weeks ago I was shopping for groceries, and I picked up a different brand of lactose free milk - Real Goodness milk.

(And yes, this is kind of an advertisement for their milk, but they aren't paying me, obviously, since I reach an audience of about five, and probably none of those are lactose intolerant.)

I went home and was opening the milk to use in something (probably a bowl of cereal), when I read on the container that it was supposed to be different than regular lactose free milk, and that it was supposed to taste more like regular milk.

Well, surprise surprise, it actually does! My bones are probably getting stronger as we speak, because I have been drinking so much more milk! Cereal for breakfast or dinner? Yes, I'll have a glass of milk with that. A real dinner that either J or I make? Yes, I'll have a glass of milk with that. Uh, chocolate that I'm not supposed to have but do anyway? Oh yeah, I definitely need a glass of white milk with that.

Thanks, Real Goodness. :) Oh, and thanks for the $1 off coupons that I printed from your website.

Mmm, milk.

Veteran's Day 2009

2009-11-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

Today I am remembering, honoring and thanking the men and women who are and who have served in the U.S. military. I appreciate the freedoms you all have served to protect for me. Thank you.

I've been close to a few veterans in my life. My grandfather served with the Marines in WWII. My oldest brother was in the Air Force. My middle brother was in the Navy. My boss was in the Army (I think I have the right branch for him, although I'm not 100% sure). And most important, my J was a Navy man. We met when we were supposed to meet, when we would be able to get together and stay together for the rest of our lives, but sometimes I wish I could have seen him in his uniform. :) So handsome!

(Although, I would have died when he was out on the ship for months at a time. I go crazy when he's gone less than two days!)

Happy Veteran's Day. Thank you again.

Nightly Report

2009-11-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

Kate is on the floor next to me, meowing to tell me she wants some attention. The dogs are all sleeping, as is J. I think Sable is the cat that just swatted a cat toy around the living room floor. The rest of the cats are probably napping.

As for me, I just finished playing the Sims 3 and watching last night's episode of Trauma online. It's a good show. And my hands are cold, because you know what? Winter is coming. Also, I have a bit of a bellyache, and I'm tired.

Entries like this are why it's probably not a good idea for me to write in here every day. :)

I hope you all have had a great Tuesday. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Why Wasn't I Watching This Show?

2009-11-09T18:27:00.000-08:00

J bought the first two seasons of My Name is Earl recently, and we've been watching various episodes to make sure the discs all work. I never watched this show before I met J, but once I started, I really liked it. I was sad when they canceled it.

Then we watched one tonight - if you know this show at all, you might know it as the episode where they were on Cops? And Earl falls down on the ground because he's trying to run with his pants around his ankles (the story for this has to be seen). When he rolls over, he says, "I skinned my pecker!" When I heard this I went immediately into the breathless laugh - the one where I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe, there is no air whatsoever, and I have tears running down my face (bringing eyeliner and mascara with them, since I actually put make-up on today). My laughing fit must have gone on for close to five minutes, and when I was done my stomach hurt, I laughed so hard.

Why in the hell wasn't I watching this show all along? And why in the world did it get canceled? Seriously, sitcoms never make me laugh like that! If you haven't seen that episode, watch it. Just be prepared to laugh your ass off!

Lonely and Bored!

2009-11-08T16:04:00.001-08:00

J played a dirty trick on me. He made me fall in love with him, and then he got me used to having him around. Now when he goes away for a weekend, I go crazy missing him.

All right, I was okay yesterday - I had seen him in the morning, after all. And I was fine today, until sometime around sunset. Now? I'm lonely, damn it! :) I'm so glad he's coming home tonight.

If you're not J, then this entry is probably making you sick, because it's all lovey-dovey. It's true, though. I like having him around. Which is a good thing, since I'm going to marry him someday, and all. :P

Quiet

2009-11-07T14:40:00.001-08:00

J went with his friend to the Dolphins/Patriots game in Massachusetts this weekend, so I'm here alone with the animals until Monday. I just got done watching some online TV (I had a lot to catch up on, although I'm miffed at ABC for pulling not just Eastwick from the web, but the forgotten as well - bastards). Once the show I was just watching ended, I took my headphones out of my ears (my laptop speakers don't go very loud), and was just enjoying the quiet. The animals all seemed to be sleeping. The TV isn't on. It was nice.

And then Willow started growling and barking (at nothing, at a dog, at a cat, who knows). Oh, Willow.

Now I think I'll sit here in the quiet and play the Sims 3 for a while. Have a great Saturday night, people.

Welcome Back, My Old Foe

2009-11-06T07:51:00.001-08:00

It started to snow last night, and this morning while I was half asleep, half awake (much to Rosebud's dismay - she was ready to get up and have some breakfast), the plow actually went by! Although I'm not really sure what the plow accomplished, since there was less than an inch of snow on the ground (the grass wasn't even all the way covered), and our driveway hardly had any on it at all. But still, that's the first time the plow has gone by this winter.

And here's another first - I actually got my winter coat back out. Winter coat! This is a big thing, because I tend to just wear my light jacket as long as possible. Of course, I still haven't gone looking for my gloves or a hat, but at least my upper body will be warm, and I can stick my hands in my pockets.

So, winter is back, at least unofficially. Fall is still trying to give us some nice days - I heard 60 batted around for this weekend - but for the most part, winter is taking control, regardless of what the calendar might say. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving, Christmas and of course my week off between Christmas and New Year's, but somehow I kind of wish we could skip right from New Year's to spring. But, if we didn't suffer through winter, then would we really appreciate spring?

Winter coat. Hmph.

TV!

2009-11-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

Wow, thank goodness my friend Sarah just updated and reminded me, because I almost blew it by forgetting to do this today! Oops. Thanks Sarah!

J and I just got done eating dinner, and now he's watching TV and resting after a long day of work, and I'm sitting at my desk, doing this, playing the Sims 3 and petting Zelda and Gracie. Being me is a tough job, but someone has to do it. ;)

Ooh, and tonight is Thursday! Which means The Office will be on, plus Community, which I'm enjoying a lot. And there are other good shows to watch online later! Bones, Grey's Anatomy. It's a good TV day.

Have I said I'm watching way too many shows this season? I blame online TV. But I love it. :) The only thing is, Eastwick wasn't online tonight when I tried to watch it. What's up, ABC? Some of us can't watch live all the time. :(

Making Plans - Costume Plans

2009-11-04T09:31:00.000-08:00

This year I actually dressed up for Halloween - something I don't normally do. I borrowed a black hooded robe and a plastic axe from J and went as an executioner. Which was kind of boring, maybe, but it's the best Halloween costume I've ever worn as an adult.

Then a couple of days later, J says to me that he is missing a great opportunity! He can't dress up for Halloween in his job, but he can dress ME up. Hee. So he already has a plan for next year's costume in mind, and we're going to do it up right.

I would tell you what it is, but where's the fun in that? You need to be surprised. :)

Y? Because We Like You!

2009-11-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

If you've been reading me for any length of time, you know that I am a fan of watches. I collect them. More specifically, I collect fun character watches, and have somewhere around 50 of them.

So you can imagine my joy when J came downstairs this morning and plopped this down on the counter while I was in the kitchen filling the animals' water dish:

(Pardon the crappy picture - I couldn't get my camera to focus in on it really well without washing it out with light, even though the flash was supposedly off.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a WIND-UP Mickey Mouse watch that J had when he was younger. And it still works! I'm wearing it right now.

How much do I love this watch? Oh, so freaking much. Thank you J! This is the most awesome thing ever!

Introduction, of Sorts

2009-11-02T10:12:00.001-08:00

So here I am again, for the second day in a row, dipping my toes into the pool of blog writing after some time away. Since this is the second day of NaBloPoMo, and I may get people here who have never read my blog before, I thought this might be a nice time to do a bit of an introduction.

Hi new readers (and regular readers)! My name is Denise. I'm 40 years old, but I don't really feel any older than I ever have. I lead a quiet life, but I like it.

I'm engaged to a great guy, who I call J here (hi J!). We don't have a solid wedding date planned, but I think we might be saying I do in September of 2010. We've been dating for three years now, and we got engaged on Christmas Day, 2007. He is the love of my life, and I'm so glad to have him in my life.

We have a house full of animals between the two of us. We each came into the relationship with two dogs, but I had him all kinds of beat, number wise, because I also have five cats. Now, we're down one dog (we still miss you like crazy, McDuff), but the rest are there. Willow (my female dog) hates Rosebud (his female dog), but then Willow hates every other dog and cat in the world, so that's not too odd. She REALLY hates Rosebud, though. (And actually, she kind of liked McDuff, not that she seems to be mourning his loss any now that he's gone.) And then there's Bernie, who is my gentle, affectionate, sweet as can be Bernese Mountain Dog Mix.

I work at a local state college, staring at a computer screen all day. It's hard on the eyes sometimes, but I like my job. I have three brothers and one sister, plus a crapload of nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews. My parents are all gone (one father, one step-father, one mother, all died before they should have, in my opinion).

I like to read, knit, crochet, watch movies (especially romantic dramas) and this season I seem to be watching a lot of TV (I love being able to watch TV online - I'm watching way more TV than I ever used to, because I can log on and watch it whenever I want).

Oh, and I am addicted to the Sims 2. I also play Sims 3, but it hasn't captured my heart the way 2 has, yet. I still enjoy it a lot, though, and go back and forth between the two games.

And that's enough about me, I guess. And look at that, two days down, only 28 to go!

NaBloPoMo

2009-11-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I waited until the day it started to decide, but I signed up to do NaBloPoMo again. So check here every day this month - I'm going to be writing daily again! This should be fun, since I've been so low on motivation for Internet writing lately.

Will I make it all 30 days without forgetting to post? We'll see! :)

Social Networks are Cool!

2009-10-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

I was searching on Facebook one day, and found a woman I used to be friends with when I was 10-12 years old. I loved reconnecting with her, and that kind of thing has happened a few times, which is why I love Facebook (more than just for the farming applications, hee).

Today I got a message that she had tagged me in some pictures. Check these out! It's me when I was probably 10 or 11 years old.

I LOVE these. I'm so glad she posted them. :)

Grace

2009-10-27T08:12:00.001-07:00

There's a reason my Mom used to call me Grace, and it wasn't because I was full of it.

Case in point, from about five minutes ago:

I see the maintenance guy painting the door frames in the front office, and think that I'm going to have to be careful not to walk into those door frames today (I have a tendency to brush up against walls when I walk, because I'm just that graceful).

Five minutes later I'm heading up to use the restroom. I brush right up against the freshly painted door frame, leaving a ragged white streak of paint on my gray shirt sleeve.

Foreshadowing is alive and well in my life.

2009-10-15T06:33:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted here in so long, and now that I am, it's with bad news. McDuff had to be put to sleep this morning.

Good-bye McDuff, we're going to miss you so much. You were the sweetest dog in the world, and I'm so glad I got to know you and have you in my life.

Best Pictures Done!

2009-09-14T07:04:00.001-07:00

Uh, long time no entry, right? Well, I've been thinking about just deleting this blog, actually. I don't seem to ever have the desire to post here anymore, so why keep it online? I don't know. I haven't made any firm decision on that yet, though, so here it stays for now.

But I did have to post today, just to announce a 101 in 1001 update. I finally finished watching all of the Best Picture Oscar winning movies! Woo! That took me months, and I enjoyed almost all of them, and only found one stinker in the whole bunch - really, why did Annie Hall even get nominated? It was so stinking boring! Ugh.

Anyway, I found some movies that I really love, including the Lord of the Rings movies. I tried watching the first one when it first came out on DVD, and I was bored and did other things the whole time it was on. This time, however, for some reason I really got into it, and into the two that came after it (it was the third one that won Best Picture). I kind of want to own them, and to watch them again.

Oh, and to be completely honest, I do have one movie on my DVR at home to finish watching. It's Tom Jones, and it's not a bad movie, but it is kind of boring, and I have an hour left to watch, and I haven't been able to force myself to do it yet. I will soon, though, so I can delete it and make space on the DVR for the new season's shows.

I also have three movies to watch that aren't on DVD yet - Wings from 1927, Cavalcade from 1932 and Rebecca from 1940. I have them on my Netflix queue, though, so if they ever come out on DVD, I'll get them and watch them. But since they aren't available right now and I have no way of watching them (unless I happen to catch them on TV), I am marking this item as done! Woo!

30 Days of Denise - A New blog

2009-08-03T07:23:00.001-07:00

I decided to start a new blog to chronicle my weight loss efforts. It seems like a big enough topic to require its own space, don't you think? If you care about how I'm doing on my quest to lose weight, you can follow me here. If not, well then, I guess you can ignore this whole post. :)

Feeling

2009-07-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

Antsy. Bored. Hungry to devour all junk food before August arrives and brings with it 1200-1550 calorie days. Wanting to both stop time and fast forward it. Wanting to hug my J. Wanting to just be with my J. Wanting to hug our Duff. And then to hug Willow, Bernie, Rosie and all the kitties, too.

Wishing. Wanting. Needing. Desiring. Knowing this makes sense to no one else, but needing to say it anyway.

30 Days of Blank, and Duff

2009-07-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

I just had an idea. An idea that will probably turn out to be more than I can bear. An idea that even as I'm getting ready to write about it, I'm wondering if I can even make it past day one.

You see, I clicked a link to Thirty Days of [Blank]. Basically, you choose one thing that you'd like to make a habit, and you do it for 30 days - starting Saturday, August 1st. My immediate thought, and the one I want to do but don't know if I can? This needs its own paragraph, so here it is:

Do I dare, can I possibly, go 30 days staying in my calorie limit? Can I go through the whole month of August without a cheat day? Can I go through the whole month of August working out at least three times per week?

Is this possible? The biggest question here: CAN I GO A WHOLE MONTH WITHOUT EATING AN ENTIRE BAG OF GOLDFISH EVERY SATURDAY AND/OR SUNDAY??????

I don't know. Thirty days is a long time to deny myself. But I spent almost the entire month of July eating anything I wanted - almost the entire month! So I think I'm going for it.

So. Starting this Saturday, August 1st, I will be tracking my food in sparkpeople's website - every single bite that goes in my mouth. I will try my hardest to not go over my calorie limit. And I will work out at least three days per week.

Now, this doesn't mean that I can't eat any junk food - it just means I have to plan for it by eating less the rest of the day. I've denied myself chocolate for 40 days before, and I don't aim to repeat that experience. No, thanks, I like my Hershey bars too much. But still - 1200 to 1550 calories per day, for 30 days in a row.

August should be a fun month. Oy.

*****

In other news, we have bad health news on McDuff. I don't want to talk too much about it, because it both makes me too sad, and it feels like it's more J's story than mine, since Duff is his dog - even though I couldn't love Duff anymore than I do, I don't think. He's such a cutie, and a sweetie.

He was diagnosed with lymphoma. We're medicating him to keep his symptoms in check, but he won't be with us a lot longer. I'm trying not to focus on that, though - I'm just planning on enjoying every day we get with him. He's a good boy.

Annie Halzzzzzzz

2009-07-28T05:42:00.000-07:00

Oh, oops. Did I fall asleep while writing that title? I guess it must be because writing the name Annie Hall reminded me of watching it last night. That movie is so boring! I have to admit, I've never liked Woody Allen - I just don't get why people think he is funny. But this movie won the Best Picture Oscar in 1977, so it was on my Netflix list, and last night was when J and I sat down to watch it.

Three minutes in, I was ready to shut it off and have this be the one winning movie that I didn't bother to watch. If I had been watching it alone, instead of with J, I would have done just that (or played the Sims while it was on, and barely paid attention).

Why do people like this humor? Why did this movie win? I like Diane Keaton a lot, and even she couldn't save it! Neither could seeing Paul Simon, Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken in it! Wow, the boredom. The DVD messed up near the end and sent us directly to the credits - I was relieved to be done! And then when J figured out that we had missed some scenes, I just couldn't believe that I had to sit there and watch more. Groan.

There were good movies nominated that year, too. Of the four other nominated movies, I had seen two - The Goodbye Girl and, of course, Star Wars. I would have been happy for either of those to win.

So glad that's over. Stupid Woody Allen. (And if you're a fan and you're reading this, I apologize for insulting him, but he just bores me to tears.)

Feeling Fat

2009-07-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

I misbehaved on vacation - but it's vacation! I was enjoying myself, so I didn't care. Then the next Monday came, and I went back to work, sure that I would jump right on the diet wagon. Uh, I didn't. Oops.

I felt my middle getting thicker. I felt my body telling me to stop. But I kept eating.

But today is a new day! I am back on that diet wagon, and so far so good. The struggle to lose weight is a constant battle, and I can jump off the wagon sometimes, as long as I jump back on before too long.

****

I just googled the name of a girl I was best friends with in 5th and 6th grade, and found her on facebook. I saw her picture, and it took my mind a few moments to adjust - I last saw her when we were about 12, so I had never seen her adult face. I sent her a friend request, and it's nice to just find out that she's still out there existing. The Internet is an amazing thing sometimes.

Of course, I immediately googled a couple of my other old friends, but found nothing. But if she's out there, then they are too, somewhere. I'll keep searching, and maybe someday I'll find them.

****

On Friday night J took me to see Buddy Guy in concert. He's an old blues musician, and he put on amazing show! I loved every second of it, and only wish he had played longer. I got some amazing pictures, too (which are all on my other laptop, and therefore not accessible right now).

****

Okay, that's all from my fat feeling self. Happy Monday, people!

Third Cake's the Charm?

2009-07-24T06:15:00.000-07:00

In all fairness to the people who made my first birthday cake - the horrible one that got thrown away, and put a huge damper on my birthday - I have to say that the manager felt so bad about the cake being bad that she not only approved me getting J's money back, but she also had the bakers make me a second cake, at no charge.

And this time, the baker hit it out of the park. This cake is amazing,. Seriously. So freaking good. If the cake I got last week had been this good, I would have had a much better birthday. Yum.

Notes

2009-07-23T05:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Rosebud,

Please don't start whining 20 minutes before my alarm goes off. It makes me cranky.

Thanks,

The woman who scratches behind your ears the way you like during poop loving time

Dear SUV Driver,

Please don't pull out in front of me, when there isn't anyone behind me! And especially don't pull out in front of me and then proceed to go 10-15 miles BELOW the speed limit. You're a fuck head, and I hate you.

Sincerely,

The pissed off woman in the red car behind you

Dear Canadian Geese,

Please don't hang out in the road with your teenaged babies. I don't mind stopping for you, but when I go around you and you're still walking down the road, it makes me nervous that the next car won't stop, and I don't want any of your family members to die. I like you. So please, go back to the water or hang out in the fields.

Thanks,

The woman who likes birds and doesn't want them to get hit in the road

Dear J,

I miss you. I can't wait to see you when I get home this afternoon. If this mood I'm in doesn't go away, I may need you to give me a back rub or something, okay?

I love you,

Dede

Dear work computer,

Please start up when I turn you on. I need to clock in online, and if you take forever to start up, then I take the risk of maybe clocking in late. I don't want to lose money because you decide to update yourself first thing in the morning. Stop being an annoying fuck.

Thanks,

The girl who pounds your keys all day

Dear Febreze,

Thanks for stopping my flip-flops from stinking. You rock.

Signed,

The woman who doesn't fear slipping her shoes off at work anymore

Dear willpower,

Please come back. I miss you.

Sincerely,

The woman who doesn't want to gain back all of the weight she lost

Okay, notes over. Bye!

Hey Maple Tree, It's July! Quit the Orange Stuff

2009-07-21T16:39:00.001-07:00

We've had a fairly cool, wet summer. People are having trouble getting their gardens mature enough to get their veggies. We put the ACs in the windows weeks ago and haven't had to run them once.

And tonight I was driving home, and saw orange and yellow leaves on a tree. The leaves are turning! What the heck? It's July!

It's a weird summer.

Also, tonight is the premiere of Hell's Kitchen, woo! You know where J and I are going to be in 19 minutes - sitting with our butts planted on the futon, meeting all of this year's contestants. We love that show.

Later, people!

Vacation Day Nine

2009-07-19T15:44:00.000-07:00

My last day of vacation. :( It's okay, though, it's been a great one!

Today was pretty low key - we didn't leave the house at all, except for a trip I made to get us dinner. I got up, watched a DVD, read a little of my book, and then when J got up, I took all of the books out of the bookcase in the bedroom, moved the shelf to the living room, and arranged the books all in alphabetical order. It looks great now, and I love that the books are A. in the same area, and B. in alpha order so that I can find them when I want them.

Doesn't it look nice? I keep looking over there just to look at it. :)

Of course, you can't just arrange bookcases and not clean the rest of the room, so I vacuumed, dusted, rearranged pictures on the walls, and decided I wanted my curtains to be tied back, so I crocheted up six tiebacks and hung them up. The curtains look nice now, too.

By the time I got done, it was about 4:30! This day went by so fast! I love the looks of the living room now, though, so I don't mind.

Bernie seems to like the new book corner - so does Lucy. :)

The top of my computer tower, which holds a bunch of little toys - and my new Binghamton Mets baseball. :)

Vacation Days Seven and Eight

2009-07-18T13:04:00.001-07:00

No update yesterday, because by the time we got back from the baseball game, it was after Midnight, and I was tired. So here's a catch-up entry.

It was raining when we left home yesterday to go to the game, and it was still sprinkling when we got there, but it was supposed to clear up, so we weren't really bothered. We got our food ($1 hot dogs for J, a cheeseburger for me, and we shared some fries), ate it, and went out to our seats. We were right behind home plate! How cool is that?

This picture shows them rolling the tarp off the field - they had it covered because of the rain.

Before the game, the mascots came around and high fived everyone sitting or standing up front, including us. :) The black and yellow one is Buddy, the official mascot of the Binghamton Mets.

The game was a lot of fun. I've never been a baseball fan, but as seems true with all sports, it's much more fun if you're there in person, instead of watching on TV. We saw a grand slam! It was pretty exciting.

We didn't stay for the whole game - they got started late, and we had an almost two hour drive home, so we left at about 10:45, when they were in the 7th inning. The Mets ended up winning, which is cool, and I had a lot of fun. It felt like a really nice birthday treat (since it turned into my birthday while we were on the way home).

I'm glad we had such a good time last night. And this morning it was my birthday! I turn 40 today. I'm not upset about the number at all - I don't care what age I am, as long as I feel good, and since those headaches have finally gone away, I feel fine.

I got up before J today, so I relaxed for a while until he got up, and then we cut into my birthday cake for lunch. :P

It's pretty, isn't it? Yup. Unfortunately, when I cut into it, the cake was white, instead of marble. And that would have been okay, but it was also HORRIBLE. I don't know what went wrong - I ordered the cake from the same place that has made my cakes for the last two years (at my work), and those were amazing. This one, though, was dense and chewy and disgusting. J and I each ate one piece, but the rest of it is going in the trash. It was really disappointing. I even e-mailed the director of food services as soon as I finished my piece, to complain, and I'm going to make sure to get J's money back.

So, that kind of ruined the morning, you know? But J offered to do whatever he could to make it better, which was very nice. So we went shopping and got groceries, and we picked up a marble cake mix and a can of chocolate frosting, so I could have a replacement cake.

Unfortunately, J's kidney stone and stent are bothering him a lot today, so we haven't really done much else. We may go out to dinner if he gets up feeling better.

There have been nice things about today, though. I've gotten to spend a little bit of time with J, before he went back to bed in pain. I got a birthday card from my Aunt, who I never hear from, so that was a nice surprise. I got an Amazon gift card from Sally (thanks, Sally), and I've gotten a lot of nice birthday wishes from my friends, both online and in real life. It's all good stuff, really. And while I wait to find out if J feels up to going out to dinner, I'm sitting here reading a book and playing the Sims. Oh, and I frosted my replacement cake.

I stole the roses from the old cake - the frosting was fine, it was just the cake that was bad. I don't have any tubes of icing to use to write on this one, but that doesn't matter - at least I have a decent cake, that is so soft and moist that the top layer broke down the middle as I was putting it on the bottom layer. I tried to tell it I wasn't really broken hearted, and didn't need the obvious symbolism, but it was just so moist and fresh it broke anyway. Hee.

And meanwhile, Rosebud is here to remind me that today really isn't ALL about me.

Rosebud: "Hey, you, it's dinner time. I need food. Can't you tell that I'm starving? Feed me!"

Edited to add: J got up and was feeling well enough, so we went to dinner, and now my whole day feels better. I just needed one more thing to go well, and dinner did. Thanks, J. :)

Now, I'll let my piece of lasagna and garlic bread settle, and then...replacement birthday cake! Yum. :)

Vacation Day Six

2009-07-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

We just had the most fun we've had all day - maybe even all vacation! We just watched Smokey and the Bandit on DVD. Oh man, I love that movie. It's so fun!

We also took Duff back to the vet today - his neck has been swelling back up. They took blood to test, and said he had edema, which is basically his tissue holding onto fluids. So they have to find out why. Think good thoughts for him, would you?

Tomorrow we're going to pick up my birthday cake (mmm, cake) and we're going to a baseball game - the first game I'll ever go to! It should be a lot of fun.

Oh and yesterday we went mini golfing, got some great pizza (Cicilian pizza for me, the first time I had ever had it, and I LOVED it), and we used that $50 gift certificate to get us some free steaks. You can't beat that!

And now I'm going to go. Woo, vacation!

Vacation Day Five

2009-07-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

Exhausted. Need to go to bed. Have a cute picture of Duff, and I'll be back tomorrow. :)

Vacation Day Four

2009-07-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

All in all, today was a really great day.

This morning I had an appointment with my doctor about my headaches. I described everything that had been happening over the last week, the shooting pains, the overall headaches, the nausea one night, and she said she thought they were elements of a migraine (or words to those effect) and she gave me a prescription for a migraine medication. I took one once I got home, and waited to see if it would work (because of course I already had a headache before I went to the doctor). And what do you know? It worked! I've been headache free since about Noon, and it feels pretty darn amazing.

Being headache free made it possible to have a good day today, too. We went to Red Robin for lunch with J's parents, which was a lot of fun. I really like his parents - all of his family, really. We had great burgers, and talked to his parents, and I got gifts! They gave me a Pink Panther watch, which of course I love, and they also gave me a card with $50 in it! Woo! I love birthday money.

After lunch, J and I went to Home Depot so that he could spend his birthday money on a work bench, but the Home Depot we went to didn't have one. So we ended up at Lowe's - where he found a great one! So it was a successful outing.

When we were done shopping, we came home to find a sick Duff - his throat was swollen again. :( But J gave him another Benadryl, and now he's looking much better. Poor little Duff. I'm glad he seems to be getting better again, but I really wish he would stop swelling up.

We spent the next few hours relaxing. I caught up with online stuff, J watched TV and napped, and I played the Sims and read (at the same time - I'm a great multi-tasker). Then we went to get ice cream! We took Duff with us, and they even gave him a doggie dish of soft serve vanilla, complete with a Milk Bone! Too cute and it made me wish I had brought my camera. :)

Yes, all in all, this was the perfect vacation day. Woo! I love vacation!

Tomorrow we're planning on maybe going to play mini-golf and then we're planning on using our $50 steak house gift certificate - the one I won almost a year ago. You've gotta love free steak.

I look forward to our vacation week every year. It's a great week. :)

Constantly Speaking Too Soon

2009-07-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up and didn't have any head pain - it was miraculous! I felt cured! J and I spent a relaxing morning doing our own things, and then we went to KFC for lunch, and then to Walmart so that J could get an oil change in his car. By the time we were done walking around Walmart, my head was hurting again, and I was exhausted. It wasn't the same pain - no shooting pain - just a regular headache. But, following six days of headaches, it was enough for me to actually call the doctor's office and make an appointment. I go in at 10:15 tomorrow. Blah. (And now, at 9:18 p.m., the headache is still hanging around, making me feel worn out and less than normal.)

There was one good phone call before that, though - I ordered my birthday cake, woo! I love birthday cake.

Vacation Day Two

2009-07-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

Bedtime. Tired. Today was a good day, though. J and I had the whole day together, which was really nice. We watched a movie (Midnight Cowboy, from 1969 - it won the Oscar, but J and I were both disappointed), we went to Denny's for lunch, we got groceries. The lawn was mowed, relaxation was had - it was good.

I'm going to be calling the doctor tomorrow to make an appointment, though. I am still having the shooting pains. I didn't take any Advil this morning, and the pains pretty much happened all morning. They took a break in the afternoon, but came back in the early evening - which seems to be their pattern. So I need to go get it checked out. I'm not too worried about it, but I'm hoping they can tell me why the pains are coming, and help me get rid of them. We'll see.

Oh, and tonight I got some Sims time, and I created a much more accurate Sim version of myself. J and I were both happy with her - she's about as close as I'll ever be able to get, I think. I need to create J, too, but it's too late and I'm too tired. That will be a project for tomorrow or later this week.

Okay, I'm off to bed. Good night, all!

Vacation Day One

2009-07-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

What a great way to start a vacation! I slept in until almost 7:00, which shouldn't seem like "sleeping in," but when you have dogs (Rosebud) who like to get up at 5:30, it feels pretty darn late.

I had plans to go to the movies with Sarah today, to see My Sister's Keeper, but I got to spend some time relaxing first, which was nice. The ice pick headache started again once I got up, but I took some Advil and knocked it back out. And then I felt good enough that I actually did a workout DVD (yoga/Pilates combo from the Crunch series)! It's the first time I worked out in a week, because I'd been feeling so bad, so it felt good to get my muscles moving again.

So we went to the movie, and it was pretty good. I never like movies based on books if I've already read the books, though. I spent the whole time comparing it to the book in my head, and of course the movie didn't match up. But it was a decent movie, I guess. And of course seeing it with Sarah was fun. We went to Friendly's and had ice cream sundaes after, yum. And she treated me for my birthday! Thanks, Sarah!

Other than that, I got some of my regular Saturday stuff done - laundry, dishes. And J got home earlier than scheduled, so our vacation together has officially started! We kicked it off with sandwiches from Jrecks, so our eating vacation is off to a great start. :)

Headache Be Gone

2009-07-10T12:14:00.001-07:00

My three day headache seems to finally be gone. I'm being cautious in my optimism, but I think it may have left the building. Woo! And of course, right after I typed that I felt a small twinge in my right temple, but this twinge pales in comparison to the pain I was having yesterday, so I'm still optimistic.

The question now is, what the heck was going on? I'm wondering if this may be the start of migraines? My Mom used to suffer from them - I remember her going into a dark room with an ice pack to put on her head, leaving me with the strict admonition to be QUIET. Or maybe it was a hormonal thing - a new, extra special symptom of PMS. I don't know. All I know for sure is that it felt amazing to be headache free today (it was still kicking this morning, but I took three Advil, and that, combined with the long night of good sleep I got may have been the magic ticket to kick its butt).

So there's some good news. The other good news is that my vacation starts in 40 minutes, woo! I love vacation so very much.

Okay, people, I'm off to do things. Have a great Friday afternoon!

Blah and Look! Cute Picture!

2009-07-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

My vacation is so close! And it's a good thing, because for some reason I am feeling so stressed right now. Work is insane this week, because of orientation. Since Tuesday night I have been having what is apparently called "ice pick headaches," which is basically shooting pains in my right temple. They come, last about three or four seconds, and leave. The pain is swift and strong and goes pretty quickly, but it's like a lightning strike (or an ice pick strike, I guess) that just keeps coming over and over again, so it's rather disturbing and painful. I'm actually thinking of going to the doctor about them, and I HATE going to the doctor.

Add in all the stupid ways in which people can get on your nerves (and for some reason today there seem to be many people doing this), and I am just more ready for vacation than ever.

Only one more day to go! Sigh.

In other news, this picture is currently on my work desktop. It's not a great picture, but it sure is making me laugh whenever I look at it. Duff just looks so perturbed at having Willow sitting on top of him, practically. :D

This Brain Has Gone On Vacation, Check Back Later

2009-07-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

I still have two more days to work before I go on vacation, and I have enough work to do that both of those days will be fairly busy. And yet, my brain is trying to leave early. It's trying to set an out of office message, like so:

"We're sorry, but Denise's brain has left for vacation. Said brain will return to work on or about Tuesday, July 21st (one day after her body). Her brain will respond to all work requests at that time. Thank you."

I'm having to really concentrate to keep that message from playing every time someone e-mails me or talks to me with something they need done.

Must fight vacation brain! At least until Friday at 4:00!

Vacation To Do List

2009-07-07T09:38:00.001-07:00

J and I are taking vacation together next week, woo! We're not going anywhere, but you know what? Relaxing at home together is enough. It's going to be great.

So, last night I wrote up a vacation to do list on our white board calendar, and I thought I'd share it with you. Ready? Okay, here goes.

1. Go to Red Robin with J's parents on Tuesday
2. Go to steak house to use the gift certificate I won last year
3. Go to Quack's (a local diner) to use my birthday month coupon
4. Go get soft serve ice cream (yum)
5. Go to baseball game?
6. Go mini golfing?
7. Have birthday cake!!
8. Go to Home Depot
9. Go to movies with Sarah (me, not J)

A little explanation of each: 1. it's become an annual tradition to go out to lunch with his parents during our vacation. Any tradition involving me getting a free hamburger is one I highly encourage (free because his Dad always pays, which is very nice of him); 2. Self-explanatory, really. The steak house is quite a ways away from us, and it has never worked to go. But while we're on vacation we have the time, so free food, woo!; 3. More food! Love it; 4. summer is synonymous with soft serve ice cream, isn't it?; 5. this one isn't happening - the local team doesn't have any home games that week. But it's okay, we'll just go some other time; 6. maybe! It's fun; 7. The best part of birthdays, apart from the gifts, and I already got those, so woo! Cake!; 8. J is finally going to spend his birthday money to buy himself a work bench. All men should have one of those, right?; 9. I asked Sarah if she wants to go see this, because J definitely won't want to, and neither does her husband. And we've both read the book, and I want to see it. I'm hoping we'll go this Saturday (I need to finalize this with her, though).

So, yes. A vacation centered around food. :D There are worse things! And any vacation that ends with my birthday is one I will always love.

(The diet will resume on the 20th, by the way, although I will try to not go completely overboard on a daily basis.)

Duff Update

2009-07-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Great news! Tonight when I got home, McDuff was running around full of energy, his lump completely gone. Woo! J took him to his regular vet this morning, of course, and was told that since the swelling has gone completely down in just half a day, it was most likely an allergic reaction, and he should be fine with just a few more doses of Benadryl (half a pill, so that it doesn't knock him completely out).

This is SUCH great news. I was already missing having Duff act like his normal self.

Also, the vet said it could be something as simple as a spider bite. Blech. Another reason to hate those 8 legged things.

Duff Don't Be Scaring Us Like That!

2009-07-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, J noticed a small lump under Duff's armpit. Then he developed a lump under his throat, so J called and made an appointment for him to go to the vet tomorrow morning. Well, Duff decided he couldn't wait that long - his throat and head were all swollen today, and he was acting sick - just listless and not himself. So we took an unscheduled trip to the emergency vet today.

Duff: "I was feeling bad, man."

The vet game him a shot of steroids and one of Benadryl, and we waited to see if the lumps would go down. They got a little smaller, but not a lot, so the vet was talking about what could be happening - she mentioned the word lymphoma and basically scared the crap out of us, and we spent the next 15 minutes or so in the room alone with Duff, worrying and trying to decide what to do next (leave him there for observation in case the throat swelling closed his windpipe), have them run tests, take him home). I felt his neck, and it had gotten smaller! The vet agreed when she came in, so we took him home with instructions to give him a Benadryl tonight before bed, and then to just keep the vet appointment tomorrow. Now, three hours later, the lump has shrunk so much it's almost gone. Whew! J will still take him to his regular vet tomorrow, but we're very relieved that he is doing so much better.

Why is it that our pets have to scare the hell out of us like this from time to time? I could live without repeating this experience again for a while, okay?

One funny thing, though - all the people there were women (vet, assistants, receptionists), and they all fell in love with our McDuff. He's such a lover!

Duff: "What can I say, the women love me!"

Pictures from Today

2009-07-04T19:54:00.001-07:00

July 4, 2009: Farmer's market, parade, talking with my sister, relaxing, my first fireworks with J. :) All in all, it was a pretty darn good holiday.

Prettiest horses.

Best band (I hate when high school bands don't make an effort and look like they don't want to be there - this one was great, though, with the uniforms and marching in step and sounding great).

Is it even possible to have a parade without fire trucks?

A pretty shot of the local college campus, where the fireworks are set off. My camera takes really good low-light shots outside. I wanted to test the fireworks setting, but I'll need a tripod before I can do that. When I tested it, the shots came out all blurry from me shaking as I held the camera.

Happy July 4th!

2009-07-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it didn't take me long to forget to write an entry this month, did it? Sigh. I'll try to make amends by posting twice today. I'm going to the usual small town July 4th festivities with my sister this morning, and I'll take my camera and share any particularly good photos with you.

As for today, the dogs and I are all ready. I'm wearing my Old Navy 2009 Independence Day shirt, and the dogs are dressed up, too.

Willow

Bernie

Rosie

McDuff (who isn't wearing a bandana because it was a bit small, and he's got a lumpy throat issue going on right now, that he's going to the vet for on Monday - but he's being patriotic in spirit, I'm sure)

Happy July 4th! I'll be back later with stories and pictures.

Fighting the Toughest Foe - Me

2009-07-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

Losing weight is such a constant struggle. It seems like it should be as easy to take it off as it was to put it on, but it just isn’t, as anyone who has ever had to lose weight knows. Whether you need to drop five pounds or 155, it’s a constant battle from the time you start until the time you get to your goal (and the fight doesn’t really end there, because you still have to maintain).

I don’t have 155 pounds to lose, thankfully, but I have way more than five. I started this struggle weighing about 80 pounds more than I want to. In the last three months I’ve lost 16 pounds, so I have a ways still to go.

So, if this is a fight, who am I battling? It feels like I should put a face to this foe of mine, but really, the only face I can give it is my own. I self-sabotage. Not all the time, thankfully, or the fight would be over before it started. But every once in a while my resolve falls, and I mess up.

This happened to me last week. I had set myself a goal of getting to a certain weight by July 4th, and it became clear last week that I wasn’t going to get there. I had hoped for it so much, and was working so hard, but it just wasn’t going to happen. So I gave up. I ate whatever I wanted, didn’t exercise, and didn’t worry about it. Luckily this only happened for a few days, and then I got back on track this last Monday. I’m doing really well, have worked out for two nights in a row, and will work out again tonight. And I actually weighed myself this morning, and I’m only a half pound higher right now than I was when my meltdown started, so I’m happy.

So now that goal I was working for won’t be reached by Saturday the 4th, obviously, and it might not be reached by my birthday in two weeks, either, but I’m getting closer. I know that I’ll get there, and then I’ll go past it, and I’m not worried about dates anymore. I’m learning all the time while I struggle to take weight off, and this was just the latest of the things I’ve learned.

The fight is back on. I’ve laced up my boxing gloves, I’m doing my dance around my opponent, to keep her (me) from knocking me down. I’m in this fight for the long haul. That 16 pound loss will turn to 20, then 25, then 30 and so on until the 80 is completely gone. I keep going back and forth on what I want my goal weight to be – I have a 10 pound range. Whether I end up in the upper end of the range, the lower end, or somewhere in the middle, I’ll be happy.

It’s a fight worth giving my all to, for sure. And I’m determined to win. That opponent of mine can keep knocking me down, but I’ll keep getting up and fighting back. As long as I get up more than she knocks me down, I’ll have won.

Black and White (and a little tan)

2009-07-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

I just signed up to blog every day in July. I'm easing my way back into the daily blogging thing by just giving you some pictures that were on my camera. Behold:

See you tomorrow!

Ring-A-Ding-Ding

2009-06-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

I waited a long time to get an engagement ring put on my finger. What was I, 38 when J proposed? Yeah, 38. I've worn it every single day since, proud to have it sitting there on my left ring finger, announcing my commitment to the man I love.

Today I had to move it to the middle finger for a while (I bet I had you all scared, thinking something had happened between me and J, right? Hee. Sorry about that). I've only lost 15.25 pounds so far, which is just a drop in the bucket of the total I have to lose, and yet my diamond has been flopping around all the time, and when I shook my hand earlier, it actually came off. And I do NOT want to lose my ring. My love for J and my love for my Mother are both tied into this thing (since it was Mom's ring from my Dad originally).

I knew that at some point my ring would get too big, but I never would have guessed that it would be getting loose this soon. It's not a big deal - I'll just move it to my middle finger, and when it gets too big again, I'll move it to my index finger. As long as I can still wear it, I'm happy. And when I get close to my goal weight, we'll get it resized so it can go back on its proper finger.

And I'm very happy to have random parts of me, like my fingers, getting smaller. :) The scale is going down slowly, but it's going down. It's a good thing.

Mind Blown. Can't Think.

2009-06-19T05:33:00.000-07:00

I just linked to an article that said that popular "Mommy Blogger" Do0ce makes a lot of money in advertising. A lot. Seriously. Are you ready for this number? Assuming this article is correct, she makes $40,000 a MONTH, in advertising from her blog. A month! That's almost twice what I make in a YEAR, and she makes it in one month. In one year? She makes $480,000. What the?!?

My mind is blown. I feel a mixture of feelings, really. Shock, that anyone could make that much money posting pictures of their kids and dogs and telling stories of their family online. An irrational hatred, because why the heck should she make so much money doing something like that? And most of all, jealousy. I want to make that much money! Just for one or two months, even!

Although really, I don't. With that kind of popularity comes an obligation to post all the time; commenters who feel they have the right to tell you every sick, twisted thing they think of; criticisms from every strange person to find their way online.

Still, that kind of money sounds nice, doesn't it? Just for a couple of months? Seriously, two months making that much money would pay off my credit cards, student loans, all of J's bills and probably both of our houses, too. We'd be debt free! It's like dreaming of winning the lottery.

Okay, I think the shock is leaving my system. I can go back to my life now.

Oh, and since I haven't written in so long, maybe I should tell you what's going on in my life, huh? Well, not much, really. I've lost 14.75 pounds so far. I'm hoping to be able to get to 25 pounds lost by my birthday, but that's four weeks from tomorrow, so I don't know if I'll make it. I'm going to try, though.

I got the Sims 3 from J as an early birthday present, and then he made it even better by upgrading my computer's video card so I could run the game properly. So I have a new game to obsess over. Hee.

I finally got a picture of my new niece from my brother, and she is such a beautiful baby! She looks like a doll. (Did I even tell you she was born? I don't remember. Just in case, she's my oldest brother's daughter, she was born on May 14th, and her name is Natalie.)

The dogs and cats are all doing well. Willow continues to growl constantly, Duff continues to be the cutest little white dog around, Bernie continues to just make me love him more and more all the time, and Rosie continues to charm J and I as only Rosie can, with farts and wet ears and some really great hugs.

Kate isn't hiding in her house as much lately. She's been out in the living room, loudly demanding pets instead. She even walked in front of J so that he could pet her last night! Of course then she ran back to her house when he got up, so she's not deciding she loves him or anything. Heh.

I've now read 10 Pulitzer Prize winning books, so as far as my 101 list is concerned, that goal is done! Of course, now I've decided to read all of the Pulitzer Prize winning novels, so in reality I have 73 left to go. Hee. They're too good to stop at only reading 10.

I'm getting really close to being done watching all of the Best Picture Oscar winning movies, too. I only have 14 left to watch, plus four that aren't on DVD right now. I'll be kind of sad when I'm done with this, actually - I've seen a lot of great movies that I might never have seen otherwise.

I guess that's all I need to catch you up on. And writing this has gotten me over the shock of finding out what Do0ce makes, so it's a good thing (also, I'm writing her name like that, and not linking to her, because I don't feel like contributing another hit to her page right now, because yes, still jealous of the 40 grand a month, :P).

Have a good weekend, my four or five faithful blog readers!

Catch-Up

2009-06-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'm not really in here chatting much, am I? Sorry! I guess I haven't been in the blogging kind of mood.

So, nothing much has been going on with me. Mostly my mind has been focused on watching what I eat and exercising. I have a significant goal in mind that I want to reach by July 4th, and it's totally reasonable to think I can do it - I just need to do the work! So I've started doing workout DVDs on Netflix online. The first one, and the one I've liked best so far, was Crunch: Fat Burning Pilates. I did it on Tuesday night, and I worked up a really good sweat, worked a bunch of muscles, and did a nice bit of work on my abs, too. My legs were actually sore when I was done! Which I haven't been able to say after riding the exercise bike or doing the videos on sparkpeople, so I'm thinking I wasn't really working hard enough. The videos are helping in that regard.

The next night I did a Jillian Michaels DVD that was targeting the upper body (since my legs and abs had gotten worked the day before). It still worked the legs, so they were doubly sore when I was done, but I did get a decent workout in my arms and chest, too. My chest was actually sore! So it was good, I think.

Last night I took a night off, to let my muscles rest. One of the things I've learned is that muscles need time to rest, to heal. I'm not sore at all today, so I think the rest was good. One night of rest is all my muscles are getting, though, because tonight I'm back to the Crunch DVD.

Oh, and I found this virtual me thing online, and put in my height, my starting weight, my goal weight, and my body type. If gave me virtual before and after pictures (these are from the Levi's website, so she's wearing Levi's jeans and a Levi's top). Here it is:

I have no perspective on what I looked like when I started (11 pounds ago), so I'm not sure how accurate the before side is. From what I remember of being at my goal weight many years ago, the after seems pretty accurate, though. I had a small upper body, with the little bit of extra weight I still had on me in the legs and butt. (My goal weight here is 135, by the way, although in reality I'll be happy anywhere between 135 and 145, which should be about a size 6 or 8 pants (US sizes, obviously).) I have this saved on my desktop at work and at home, and from time to time I open it up and look at the after, for inspiration. I'm going to get there this time, I can feel it. I'm working hard for it, so it'll happen. Eventually. Probably early next year.

Anyway, so that's what been on my mind, mostly. Well, that and Sims 3! Which came out on Tuesday. I wasn't sure if I wanted it, but then I started seeing pictures and stories about it from people who got it that day, and now I absolutely want it! It's different than Sims 2, but that's okay. I'm going into it thinking of it as a totally different game than 2. So the differences don't bother me. I just want it! Unfortunately, it's $50, and I don't get paid until next week, so it'll have to wait. I'll have it in my hands eventually, though. I just hope it works on my desktop when I get it! The video card seems to have what they require, but it isn't a version that's supported by EA for the game, so who knows if it will or not. We'll see, whenever I get my hands on a copy of it.

Other than that, I've been reading lots, and knitting some (still working on my new niece's blanket), and watching DVDs and TV, and hanging out with J when he's home. Life is pretty good.

And there you have a quick recap of what's been going on with me. I hope you all are doing well too!

Lucky Shot

2009-05-26T06:04:00.001-07:00

Yesterday at my sister's house, I asked my great-niece Ava to pose for me in the fort on top of the slide. At the same time, my great-nephew Sammy was being pushed on the swing by his Dad. I snapped the picture of Ava, Sammy swung forward, and I lucked into this great shot.

I love this kind of happy accident.

What I Learned This Afternoon

2009-05-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

Riding a real bike out on a semi-hilly road for ten minutes is way more work than riding an exercise bike in the living room for 30. WAY MORE. Ouch. To think I used to be on a bike more than I was off it when I was a kid.

Finally!

2009-05-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

Today marks a true milestone in my quest to be healthier - I have finally lost 10 pounds! Woo!

It feels like it took forever to get here, but I haven't just been dieting to lose weight - I've also been changing my eating habits, instituting an exercise habit, and basically doing this thing the right way. I'm eating a balanced diet, watching to make sure I get enough protein and fiber without going overboard on carbohydrates and fats - but I'm not doing low fat or low carb. I'm getting a good balance of everything.

I'm also exercising about 40 minutes per day Monday - Friday, and about 10 minutes per day on weekends, which is approximately a billion more minutes than I would previously have spent exercising in a week. (That may be a slight exaggeration.)

All of this work is resulting in a body that is slowly reshaping itself. I'm feeling slightly leaner, a bit tighter, and even a bit stronger. It took the scale a while to start reflecting these changes, but finally it is. And I'm down 10 pounds! It feels so good to be able to say that.

I'm so glad I finally got in the right mental place to do this. I feel so much better already! And hey, 10 down, only 67 to go! :D I just might be there by the end of the year. :)

Minor Excitement

2009-05-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

J called me earlier to let me know that the contractor who was at our house (we had four new windows put in this week) had called to let him know that our power line was sagging really low over the road, and the pipe that holds it (our contractor called it a porcelain) had almost ripped off the house. Uh oh!

So I called the light company and sent them out there to check it out, and I drove out during lunch to make sure all was well. This is the point where I'd be sharing pictures if I had remembered my camera, but alas I left it sitting in my tote bag at work. D'oh! Oh well.

But everything was fine. When I got there the contractor was still there picking up the debris from the old windows, and the light company truck was already there. There were cones set up in front of the house to warn people of the low hanging power line, and when I talked to the guy who had shown up, he said it would be an easy fix once another truck got there.

So, whew! Thank goodness for fast acting light company repair guys, and for our contractor who happened to show up after the line came loose and let us know. Oh, and it was most likely ripped loose by the wind - it's whipping at 40 mph or more out there right now.

Now here's hoping that this repair cost is covered by the charges I pay the light company every month, and that it doesn't show up in my next light bill!

Gift for Eli

2009-05-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

My newest great-nephew was born last week! His name is Elijah (Eli), and he's a cutie. And for a change I got a baby gift finished when the baby was only a week old! I finished his blanket last night.

And here it is! It's being displayed on top of the cutting board at work, so please ignore the part of the cutter that's showing at the back of the photo. :)

My nephew Ken and his wife Melanie were doing a jungle theme in the nursery. It's hard to knit something jungle like (at least for a beginner knitter - I can't do the fancy knitting designs yet), so I went with a jungle-y green. I hope they like it.

It's done in a basket weave pattern, which I just love the looks of. In fact, I think once I'm done making a blanket for my brother's new baby, I may make an adult sized version of this pattern for myself. It looks so snuggly and warm!

I did have one frustration with it yesterday when finishing it. I ran out of yarn! The end of the border was supposed to be 8 rows, but it ended up being 3. I'm sure Ken and Mel won't mind. :) As it is, I ran out of yarn when I still had about 15 stitches to bind off, so here's what the end looks like:

Oh well. It's the little imperfections that make these things mean more, right? :)

Welcome to the world, Eli! I hope you'll get lots of use out of your blanket once you get it.

Gone

2009-05-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

When I bought my house in the winter of 1999, the previous owner left a few things in it. The table I had admired while I was looking at the house was there - we use it to this day. A tan rocker/recliner was in the living room. An old fake Christmas tree was in the basement. And an old Cub Cadet riding lawn mower was in the garage.

In the years since I've moved in, the tree has stayed in the basement, the chair has been used and abused by the dogs and exiled to the garage, the table is still in use, and the lawn mower got used for a few years before it broke down and I finally had the money to buy a new one.

The other things haven't been any trouble (although the recliner is going to be making a trip to the dump someday), but that damn mower has been like a weight around my neck. Or rather, a weight in the garage. A large, yellow, immovable weight, sitting there taking up valuable space. I had a way of getting rid of it last year - the college where I work would have taken it and recycled it. But we couldn't get it out of the garage - it was too heavy to lift into a truck bed (mowers used to be made of solid steel, apparently - this thing was like a tank).

I thought I was stuck with it forever.

This year my new(er) mower needed some work before it was ready to start being used. So I took it to my friendly neighborhood small engine repair guy, who fixed it up for me. I mentioned the old yellow mower to them a couple of times (I might have had some desperation in my voice), telling his wife that if he wanted it to use for parts, or to fix up and sell, he could have it! For free! Just get it out of my garage! I didn't think they were going to bite. But at the last minute yesterday, they did.

Last night they backed their truck and trailer into my driveway, unloaded my new(er), fully functioning mower, loaded up the heavy heap, and took it away. I was never so glad to see anything leave my house.

The empty space in the garage looks so good. The weight is gone.

Yay!!

Celebrating Agriculture

2009-04-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

When's the last time you went to lunch and got to see cows, goats, horses, huge tractors and even a turkey? Today was Ag Day on the campus where I work. And I had my camera with me! Look, pretty pictures!

Cows!

Goats!

(Plus some random student holding this baby goat.)

Turkey!

And my personal favorite - Horses!

The foal reared up just as I was snapping this picture - if my camera had been pointed high enough to get his ears in, it would have been a perfect shot! I still love it, though.

Frisky baby. :)

Settling down.

Lunchtime!

Take My Temperature, Please

2009-04-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

I think I must be sick. Sparkpeople sent me an e-mail today about a challenge they're running in the month of May - a "Sweatsuit to Swimsuit Bootcamp" challenge, to be precise. Basically it's an exercise challenge. I'll be doing 30 minutes of cardio exercise five days a week, of my choosing, and then SEVEN days a week, I'll be doing short videos that they'll have posted on their website. The challenge is designed to jump start my diet and tone me up in time for swimsuit season.

Well, first of all, I will NOT be wearing a swimsuit any time soon. I want that down for the record.

But I liked the idea of seeing a larger drop on the scale by the end of May, and I liked the idea of seeing my measurements go down even more. So, even though I HATE exercising, I signed up.

I'm going to be much more fit by the end of May, that's for sure. :)

This challenge just seemed to be coming at the exact right time for me. The scale is not going down as fast as I would like at all. I've been doing this for something like 7 weeks now? And I haven't even lost 10 pounds. I'm not too disappointed, because I have lost some weight, and more importantly, I can feel a difference in my body (and I can see the difference in the numbers the tape measure is showing me, especially in my waist). But I'd like to get that number down, damn it. :)

So. I'll be riding the exercise bike, riding a real bike or walking five days a week. I'll be doing short exercise videos (using a resistance band, which I need to buy) seven days a week. And I'll be weighing in and measuring on May 30th, to see how I did. I'll let you know.

Pornographic Banana

2009-04-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

Today at lunch, I picked up a banana for an afternoon snack - only this thing is HUGE. Easily big enough to be two afternoon snacks. When I showed it to Jamie, he called it a pornographic banana. He told me to blog about it. So here you go.

I wonder how many hits I'll get with people searching for dirty banana fetish pictures? Ick. I shudder to think.

Did someone say pornographic banana?

***

So, I have recently discovered online comics! It seems like a weird thing for me to discover and actually enjoy, but I have been loving them! First I linked to Girls with Slingshots, which I fell in love with, so Jen linked me to Questionable Content, which I also loved. And then I found Girl Genius, and had a blast reading that one - it's full of adventure and has a plucky heroine, and it's just amazing, really. I caught up with that one recently, and now I'm sad that I don't have any more to read. Sigh. I guess I need to find a new comic to catch up to now.

***

I'm just about to finish the book I'm reading - "Nineteen Minutes," by Jodi Picoult, so I went online and reserved my next book with the library. Next up to be read is "The Road," by Carmac McCarthy, who it turns out also wrote "No Country for Old Men." I liked that movie a lot, so I'm interested in reading "The Road." I love finding new books to, well, love.

***

And now I'm out of things to talk about, I think. Talk to you next time! And let me know if you check out any of those comics (or if you know any others I should read).

***

Nine and a half inches of banana, baby. Oh yeah. :P

Warning: Super Long Movie Post Ahead

2009-04-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

I watched three more Best Picture winners over the last week! I'm speeding through this list, which is good, but I'm kind of sad, because it won't be long before I'll be done with this! It's been a lot of fun watching all of these movies, it really has.

Anyway, on to the movies I've seen lately!

We'll go in the order I watched them. First up:
Gentleman's Agreement
1947
Gregory Peck
Dorothy McGuire

It was kind of odd watching this movie, because I don't think the subject matter is all that relevant today. Maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, you can tell me (I tend to live in my own little world sometimes, and my world doesn't always resemble the real world much). This movie is about a reporter (played by Gregory Peck) who goes undercover in New York City as a Jew, to blow the lid off anti-semitism.

Is that still relevant? It would never occur to me that people were still anti-semitic, but I also know how horrible people can be, so maybe they are, and I just don't know.

Anyway, he tells everyone he is Jewish, and feels the effects of it. His kid gets beaten up, he is denied jobs and apartments based on it, and is basically just made way more away of how horrible people can be. And this includes his fiance, who is in on the story, but who still manages to say and do things that come off as bigoted. Throughout the movie, I actually thought he was with the wrong woman - why marry the woman who has to tell herself to be open and not go along with everyone else on this issue, when there is a beautiful woman at the magazine he is working for, who is NOT in on the secret, and couldn't care less that he's supposedly Jewish? But no, he sticks with the other woman instead. It's his fiance who explains the title of the movie - a "Gentleman's Agreement," in which people who don't agree with the anti-semitism just stand back, go along and ignore it, instead of speaking up about it.

It was a good movie - I enjoyed it. I gave it 4 stars out of 5. It made you think, and made me hope that this problem really is in the past.

Up next:
The Greatest Show on Earth
1952
Charlton Heston
Betty Hutton
Jimmy Stewart
Dorothy Lamour
Cornel Wilde

This was a really entertaining movie. It followed the Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey circus as it traveled the country putting on shows for the masses. Brad (Charlton Heston) is the manager of the circus, Holly (Betty Hutton) is a trapeze artist who is in a relationship with Brad (but he's more in love with the show than he is with her), The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde) is a famous trapeze artist who swoops in and takes the center ring away from Betty's character, and lots of other characters fill out the cast.

The main story lines in this little drama are a love triangle between Brad, Holly and Sebastian, and oh yeah - Jimmy Stewart plays a clown named Buttons, who never takes off his face paint. Why? Because he's a doctor who is on the run from the law - he's wanted for murder.

Along the way, Brad puts an end to a cheating scheme put on by one of the midway booths, which puts him under fire by the thug behind the crooked guy. This leads to a hold-up of the train carrying the take from the shows, and also leads to a train wreck.

All in all, this was a very entertaining movie, but it could have been a lot shorter - if you took the scenes that just showed the circus acts out of the movie, it would be probably an hour shorter.

Oh, and probably no one reading this has ever watched a Road movie (Road to Singapore, for example), but those movies starred Dorothy Lamour (a secondary character in this movie), Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. They must have shot them at about the same time as this movie, because in one scene where Dorothy is singing, they scan the crowd to show Bing and Bob sitting there eating popcorn and watching her sing. Ha! I think that was my favorite part of the whole movie. I love the Road movies.

I gave this one 4 out of 5 stars.

Last but not least is my favorite of the three:
Marty
1955
Ernest Borgnine
Betsy Blair

I LOVED this movie. And why wouldn't I? It's a romance! Ernest Borgnine plays the title character, a 34 year old Italian man who still lives at home with his mother. His younger siblings have all married and are having kids of their own, and Marty is still single and taking all kinds of heat from the women in the neighborhood because of it.

But he doesn't want to be single! He wants to find love! But he has been shot down and had his feelings hurt so many times that he's given up hope.

Enter a Saturday night, which he plans on spending at home alone, until his Mother convinces him to go out to a dance club. She wants him to find a woman, too! So out he goes, with his single friend.

They get to the club, and they're just standing around watching people dance. Marty asks one woman to dance, but gets shot down. But then it starts to get interesting. A woman comes in with her sister and two men. Her name is Clara. She's a 29 year old school teacher, who is single and has been set up on a date with her sister's husband's friend. One problem - the friend is a sleaze.

Unhappy with the "dog" he had been set up with, this friends proceeds to approach Marty and offer him $5 if he'll take this dog off his hands and escort her home, leaving the sleaze free to go off with some other woman he's seen there. Oy. Marty, being a gentleman, is offended by this man's offer, and tells him no. But his interest is piqued, and he watches as this guy approaches another man, who accepts the $5. But Clara rejects the invitation to have a strange man take her home, and is left alone.

And what do you know, Marty approaches Clara and starts to talk to her, and they actually hit it off! They bond over being dogs and rejected so many times throughout their lives. They're having a great time, and spend hours together that night, and leave promising to see each other the next day.

These plans start to be derailed by Marty's friends and family, and I was really afraid that he was going to do the wrong thing, but he came through in the end. I'm a sap, I know this, but I love romantic movies, and this one was great. I want to own it on DVD someday.

I gave this movie 5 out of 5 stars.

There, I'm all done with movie posts for the day. Aren't you happy? And the length of this surely makes up for me not posting yesterday, right? :) Thanks for reading! (And go rent Marty, you'll love it.)

Time Traveling

2009-04-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give up the Sims for a while. This may not seem like much, but when you consider that I thought about the Sims each day about as often as a teenage boy thinks about sex, you can see that it's really rather huge. Huge, but not unprecedented - I've taken breaks from playing before. But this time is different.

You see, for me, the Sims has been more than just a game. I've played it, yes, but I've also read online stories written using the game. I've contributed in online communities of people who are all as obsessed with the game as I am. I've developed friendships of sorts with some of them. I've spent time online, downloading custom content for the game. Basically, I've obsessed over it, played it as often as I could, and thought about playing when I couldn't.

But for the last couple of weeks, not only have I not been playing, but I haven't even been interested in reading the stories, or with participating in the communities around the game. It's like the Sims switch in my brain shut off.

I won't say that it's permanent. I may very well be back to playing before too much time has passed. But for now it's like I've been transported back in time, to 2002, or 1995, or any time before I discovered this game. I'm kind of liking the change.

And I'm glad that I haven't really been transported back to 2002 or 1995. I was horribly depressed over the death of my mother in the former, and I was single and desperately lonely in both the former and the latter. All in all, I'm way happier now.

And I'm not missing the virtual world of my Sims at all.

For now.

Sunny Saturday

2009-04-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

Today was the first nice, warm day we've had here - it's 80 degrees out right now, and it's almost 7:30 at night! I love it. We went from being cold to being almost hot in just a couple of days - ah, you gotta love Central New York weather.

Today I actually got out in the warmth a bit! I trimmed back a wild bush on the side of the garage, and pulled out some chain link fence, which we're going to use around the pool, so that it'll finally be fenced in.

And then I planted my three trees! My hands were filthy when I came in, and I loved it! I actually like planting trees and flowers. Now I just need to buy some decorative fencing to go around them, so I don't accidentally mow over them. Hee.

Later on I went out and picked some daffodils, as you can see above. I love these sunny yellow flowers so much! They're my favorite spring flower.

So I had a pretty nice time out in the fresh air today. I hope your Saturday was just as good as mine!

Arboring all over the place

2009-04-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

Today when I walked to lunch, there were some agriculture students outside, handing out free beechnut trees. So of course, I took one. On the way back from lunch, Jamie took one too, and gave it to me. Now I have two new trees to plant at home! Woo! I hope I can keep them protected and alive long enough for them to take root and start to grow. I'll have to put a fence of some sort around them, or I'll run over them with the mower for sure. (I'm not the most graceful.)

Happy Arbor Day, folks!

Middlesex

2009-04-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

The most recent Pulitzer Prize winning novel that I read was Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (which won in 2003).

I LOVED this book. I think it's my favorite of the ones I've read so far for my 1001 list (which doesn't count To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read a few years ago and is still my favorite Pulitzer Prize winner).

Middlesex tells the story of a family - but not just any family. The Stephanides family's story begins with the main character's grandparents, who immigrated to the United States in the 1920s. The big family secret is that said grandparents were both first cousins and brother and sister. Scandalous!

This incestuous relationship resulted in two children, and planted the seed for a genetic condition that would eventually show up in Callie (Cal) Stephanides, grandchild of the immigrants. This condition results in a hermaphroditic child who appears to be a girl, and is treated as such until puberty, when the truth is eventually revealed.

What made this book so captivating, though, wasn't just the unique circumstances of the family, but the relationships in the book and the characters themselves. They were wonderfully written, and I just couldn't wait to find out what happened from page to page.

This was an excellent book. I'm glad I read it.

Nine Years

2009-04-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I was sometimes afraid of her. When I was a teen, I was ashamed of her (I was a stupid teen). When I was an adult, she became my best friend.

Nine years ago today, she died.

She left a hole in my life that I will never really fill - no one can ever replace a mom. But at least it doesn't hurt me anymore to think about her. I can remember the good stuff now, the stuff worth remembering. We used to go shopping almost every Saturday. She used to like to go into the arcade at the mall, and put quarters in the crane machine until she had a few toys to take home to Baby, my dog. She used to call me every day just to talk.

In one of the last days before she died, I was sitting next to her bed, and she traced my face with her hand, like she was memorizing it. I felt the ghost of that touch for a long time after she was gone.

I love you, Mom. I miss you every single day. I wish you could have been here long enough to meet J. You would have loved him - he wishes he could have taken you to a Yankees game. I hope you're seeing that I'm happy.

Nine years went both very fast and very slow. I will miss her forever.

Kitty Picture Time

2009-04-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

I should never have scanned those pictures in yesterday - the ones of Bo and Baby, I mean. I'm glad I have them electronically now, but I put one of them on my desktop wallpaper at work, and it's making me miss them so much! Sigh. I guess I need to change the picture to one of J and/or the current dogs.

So, on to happier things - kitten pictures of cats who are actually still alive and living with me at this very moment!

I just love when kittens sleep all jumbled together! It's so cute. The orangish/tan one is Kate and Lucy's brother, who was adopted by someone else.

Sleeping with their stuffed animal buddies! (These pictures are all at the house of the person who had the Mama cat, by the way - I do not own any furniture made out of material this ugly.)

Lucy is such a beautiful cat, and she was an adorable kitten, don't you think?

I look at this picture, and then I think of how freaking HUGE Kate is now, and it amazes me that she was ever this small. Poor fat Kate.

But you can see the signs of impending fathood already - she's bellying up to the milk bar all by herself! :) I kid. I love my Kate, scaredy fat cat that she is.

Okay, pictures of the past are over for now. Tomorrow it's back to current day, most likely with a short recap of an amazing book I read recently for my quest to read 10 Pulitzer Prize winning novels. See you then!

Breaking My Own Heart

2009-04-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went into my bedroom and dug out the bag of junk that I took out of my old desk when I gave it to J. I was looking for some cross-stitch supplies, but I found a little treasure instead. Pictures. And I scanned some of them in for you.

I call this the "Baby on Dock" series. Because it's my first Rottie, Baby, on the dock of a house my Mom and I rented in the summer of 1994. We lived on a pond. It was great, but we got kicked out in the fall, because the owner wanted to move some relative in. I miss swimming in the pond, though.

A cute story about swimming in that pond - Baby didn't like swimming; Rotties aren't swimmers, I guess, or at least she wasn't. I loved it, though, and would get in at the shore and swim straight out for a while before turning around and swimming back. Whenever I did that, Baby would stand on this dock and whine. She was worried about me swimming that far away from her - how would she protect me if something happened to me? She was the sweetest dog, she really was.

This isn't a series, because I only scanned in one picture of Baby on this porch. But she looked cute here, and I wanted to include it. Please just ignore the grossness of said porch. It needed a paint job BIG time. Whoa.

Baby and Bo were great pals. Bo was quite a bit younger than Baby, but she never minded having him around, and when his puppy antics got to be too much, she'd snap at him and straighten him out, and then all was well again. She was an incredibly patient dog.

Another shot of Baby and Bo. So freaking cute! Again, please ignore the porch and just focus on puppy sized Bo, grabbing at Baby, as she just endures it in silence. I love dogs so much, and I loved these two just a ton.

So, as much as I loved Baby (and Bailey after her), no dog I've ever had has really compared to my Bo. I almost teared up just scanning these pictures in. He was a truly special dog, and one I don't think I'll ever forget. I wish he were still here with me.

This picture in particular kind of kills me. It was very overexposed (which I fixed to an extent with photoshop), but this is him, you know? His ears were always like that - one up, one down. He was such a handsome boy.

Sigh.

Okay, from an animal I miss every day to a person I miss every day. This is my Mom, with her dog, Chrissy, in 1992. I never would have guessed at the time that Chrissy would outlive Mom like she did.

Sigh again.

Okay, that's enough for now. I'm just depressing myself. And wishing I were home, so I could hug J and Bernie/Willow/Rosie/Duff. Hugs are good.

(Tomorrow will either be an entry about a Pulitzer Prize winning book I finished recently, or kitten pictures of Kate and Lucy. Depending on my mood and if you guys reply as to which you'd rather have.)

I Love Sundays

2009-04-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

Sundays are the best day of the week. J is usually home from work, so we get to hang out together, which I love. It's cheat day, so I don't worry about calories for that one day. And sometimes we do fun things. Like today!

I got $50 in my Easter card from J's parents, so we went to the mall and I bought two pairs of shoes for the summer! Woo! And then we went to Michael's, and I bought the supplies to start a cross-stitching project. Yay! That alone would make it a great day. But there's more!

We also went to Johnny Rocket's for lunch (a 50s style restaurant in the mall), and had fabulous burgers. Then we went and visited J's parents. And then we got soft serve ice cream on the way home! It almost feels like summer!

I also got quite a few rows done on the baby blanket I'm making for my nephew's baby (due in May), and I got the floss all organized for the cross-stitch project.

It was a great day. Woo! Only one more week until another Sunday. :)

Today

2009-04-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

Pictures I took today.

Some days are better than others

2009-04-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

I was so good yesterday - I ate perfectly, and stopped when it was right to do so. I felt so happy and proud of myself.

Today is a whole different day. Not so proud today. But ah, that's why there's always a tomorrow, right? So we can fix what we screwed up the day before?

(Current internal debates: whether or not to still have the leftover macaroni and cheese for dinner, even though I've already eaten pretty much everything I should eat in one day. Also, should I ride the exercise bike today, or just do it tomorrow? Does it really matter which day I do it in, as long as it gets done? Hmm.)

Becoming healthier and more fit is a long, sometimes painful process.

Rediscovering Hobbies

2009-04-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking for a while now that it was time to take a break from the Sims. I generally would have it on whenever J wasn't home, as something to do to fill the hours alone. But it's spring, and I was feeling the need to do other stuff. So I haven't been playing for the last couple of weeks, and I'm working on remembering how to fill my time with other hobbies.

And with that in mind, I went online last week and ordered this counted cross-stitch pattern. Isn't it cute? It looks a lot like our Rosebud, and I'm doing this up as a gift for J. Of course, even without the Sims taking my time, it'll take a long time to finish this thing - it's going to be fairly large, and it's really involved. It'll be fun to do, though - I haven't cross-stitched in a long time.

I've also picked the baby blanket back up that I'm making for my nephew and his wife's new baby, which is due in May. My sister is going to California to visit them in June, and I'd like to have it done by then so that she can take it with her. Why ship something that she can transport for free? :)

Once I get done with that baby blanket, I have to make another one, this one for my brother's baby, which is also due in May. He just e-mailed me today to tell me what color they want (pink), so I'll get started on that as soon as I finish this one.

I am going to be a knitting/cross-stitching fool! It's a good thing I can do both of these activities while watching TV and DVDs.

I'm sure at some point I'll start going through withdrawals from the Sims and will go back to it - I've never gone more than a few months without playing since I got the game in the first place. But for as long as I go without playing, I'm going to have fun rediscovering my old hobbies. Oh, and spending time outside, too! It's spring, after all. :)

Tired

2009-04-15T18:01:00.001-07:00

I'm so tired. Today I woke up half an hour earlier than I needed to, and couldn't go back to sleep. So I went ahead and got up, got ready for work, and went in half an hour early. That in itself shouldn't have made me so tired tonight, but here I am, exhausted. Maybe it was riding the exercise bike? Who knows.

Anyway, this is a lame excuse for an update, posted solely because of Nablopomo. I'll do better tomorrow. Right now, I'm shutting my computer down and heading to bed to watch TV with J.

Good night!

Zelda in Condo

2009-04-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

This morning, while I was getting ready for work, this is where Zelda was hanging out:

In case you can't tell, her butt is on the bottom half of the condo, while her upper half is on the top. You can see that more clearly here:

I do so love my Zelda. :)

Hormooooones

2009-04-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Every month I have one day a week where I feel the need to eat everything that isn't freaking nailed down. Today, in case you were wondering, is one of those days.

My period is due in a week. This is not a coincidence.

Gah.

***
So, yesterday while we were at J's parents' house, his Dad turned on Turner Classic Movies, which was just starting a showing of Ben Hur. So I watched it, saving myself getting that one from Netflix.

Ben-Hur
1959
Charlton Heston
Jack Hawkins
Haya Harareet

What didn't I know about Ben-Hur? Just about everything! When I thought of this movie, I thought chariot races, I thought Rome. That's about all. I had no idea it took place at the time that Jesus was growing up and getting crucified. I had no idea there was religion in it at all.

Yes, I knew almost nothing about this movie. I liked it, though. Charlton Heston, younger than I think I had ever seen him (to me he will always be an old man, I guess), played Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew who was arrested and enslaved for something he didn't do. He was sentenced to working as a rower for ships of the times. He spent over three years as a slave in these ships, chained to the boat, rowing. This lasted until the ship he was in got involved in a battle, the ship was sunk, and he saved the life of an important man.

This man takes him under his wing, and even adopts him, but Judah wants nothing more than to return home - you see, his mother and sister were arrested at the same time as he was. He wants to find them.

So he returns home in search of them, and finds his home a wreck, but with some familiar faces around.

And I don't want to give away the whole movie, in case you might ever watch it, so I'll stop there.

It is worth watching. Just be prepared, because it is four hours long. My butt was tired from sitting on J's parents' couch by the time it was over. I would recommend it to anyone to watch once, although I don't think I'll ever feel the need to watch it a second time.

I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars. A very good movie, but SO LONG. Oy.

***

Okay, that's all for today. I'm going to get back to work, and try to avoid eating anything else until dinner time. Stupid hormones. :)

Easter Bunny Ugh...

2009-04-12T18:20:00.001-07:00

It's a good thing Sunday is my diet cheat day, because the Easter bunny brought me chocolate. I have a stomach ache now.

I'm sure you can draw a direct line from that first sentence to the second one.

Happy Easter, people. Good luck nursing your chocolate induced belly aches. :)

Duff!

2009-04-11T18:10:00.001-07:00

Today was McDuff's 11th birthday! He got cupcakes and got to spend most of the day on the bed while J and I watched DVDs. All in all, it's his perfect day. :)

Happy birthday McDuff!

Good Friday Night (Ha! I made a pun)

2009-04-10T17:06:00.001-07:00

J had today off, so I left work a little early and came home. We went out to eat, and I rode his exercise bike for half an hour, and now we're getting ready to re-watch last night's Hell's Kitchen.

It's a good night. :) Talk to you all tomorrow.

Changing Seasons

2009-04-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

I uttered three words the other day that made me think how much I've changed in the last 15 years: "I hate winter."

This wasn't always true. When I was a kid, of course I loved winter. Winter meant all things fun - making snowmen, snow forts, having snowball fights. And the possibility of snow days! I loved bundling up and going out to play in the snow, especially if I could do it while I should have been in school.

When I was 10, we moved from New York to Virginia. My love of winter didn't dissipate, even though the amount of snow we received was obviously much less. I still looked forward to snow days, and I still loved to play in the fluffy white stuff.

Most adults lose their love of winter and the snow as they get older, but I didn't. We hardly ever got enough snow in Virginia to have to worry about it. Driving was easy as long as you were careful, I didn't own a snow shovel, and shoot - I hardly ever even remembered to wear a coat. Who needs one, when you go from a heated house to a heated work place, and it's in the 50s anyway?

But then something happened - I moved back north. I returned to New York, and it didn't take long for my opinion on winter and the snow it brought to change.

I was still loving it when the first snow fell. I was working in the drive-thru of a bank, and I remember getting so excited for the first snow fall! It was magical, mystical, beautiful!

Cut to 15 years later. I've driven in white out conditions that made me hold my breath and clench my fists on the wheel until I managed to get home. I've shoveled more snow than I or my back and arm muscles care to think about. I've gone off the road when I hit a snowy road that hadn't been plowed yet.

The fun is gone.

Now, my favorite season is spring, because it means not only the rebirth of nature, complete with flowers and singing birds, but also because it means the END OF WINTER. The arrival of spring means I have survived one more year of snow and wind and cold and horribleness.

I tried half-heartedly this year to make winter fun again. J and I had a snowball/wrestling fight in the snow, which was fun. I had planned on going out and making a snowman someday. But when the snow was right (it has to pack well), I never wanted to do it. Why go out and mess around in the cold, wet snow, when I have a warm house to sit in?

If I ever move back south, maybe I'll regain my love of winter. But I don't think so. I think my hatred of snow will prevail for the rest of my life.

I hate winter. Bring on the spring.

Diet Blather

2009-04-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

Work is being VERY ANNOYING this week, and I'm seriously losing all patience, so I'm going to take a short break from it and blather on in here. I hope you don't mind. :)

So, I'm continuing with the use of SparkPeople in my quest to lose a bunch of weight. I'm discovering more aspects of the site all the time, and I'm still loving it so much. I feel like, after years of eating whatever the heck I wanted, I had forgotten how a person is supposed to eat. The nutrition tracker is helping me remember. You mean I don't need to eat 3,000 or 4,000 calories a day? Weird. And I can't survive on junk food, at least not well? That's good information, thanks. :)

Okay, that was a little sarcastic, but seriously, I had forgotten how much I actually needed to eat, and tracking my food has helped me figure out not only how to get down to the right amount of calories, but also how to monitor the quality of the foods I eat. I came into this doing fine with my carbohydrate and fat intake, but wow, have I ever had a hard time getting enough protein on a daily basis. So I'm figuring out ways to get more protein. Slowly but surely, I'm figuring out what I used to just know - I'm figuring out how to eat for health, not for a cheap immediate thrill.

Although I am still having one cheat day per week, and that isn't going to stop. If I don't have one day a week when I can have chocolate and chips and burgers and whatever else I want, without worrying about calories, I'll never last on this new healthier lifestyle.

And yes, that's what I consider this - a healthier lifestyle. I'm aiming to lose weight, yes, but mostly, I want to be healthier long-term. I want to live to a ripe old age, as free of disease as I can be. This is something my parents didn't get to do. I'd like to be different from them in this respect.

And okay, this is going to sound corny, and it's going to make Sarah want to puke, but the fact is, I lived alone, single, for 37 years. This was mostly due to my own personal problems and hang-ups, but finally, after that long, I realized I could let someone in and trust that he wouldn't break my heart, and that he wouldn't leave me. Two and a half years later, J and I are still together, we're engaged, and I love him with all of my heart (as I know he loves me). I found him later in life, and I treasure what we have all the more because of that. I know what it's like to be alone when I don't want to be. It was horrible, I hated every second of it. Now I have what I always dreamed of. We may not live long enough to get to a golden anniversary, but I want to get as close as I can. I want to grow old with him, and I want to be healthy enough to enjoy all of the years we have together.

(Sarah, you can stop gagging now, the mushy stuff is over. :)

Okay, this post just went in a whole direction that I wasn't prepared for, really. Long story short, I am loving taking control of my food intake and exercise for the first time in a long time. I'm loving watching the scale go down, even though it's making me work hard for every pound I lose. I sincerely hope that I can keep this up for the rest of my life - not just until I get to my goal weight of 140, but afterwards, to maintain my weight and to stay healthy.

(And I'll continue to look forward to cheat days every week.)

Okay, it's time to get back to work. Thanks for listening to me prattle on about lifestyle changes and weight. As a reward, here are some pictures to make you smile and maybe say "aww."

Rosie sure is a cutie.

I love my Bernie more and more every day.

McDuff is the cutest little boy in the whole world. (And his birthday is this Saturday, woo! Happy Birthday Duff!)

This is one of J's favorite pictures of Willow. So this one is for him. :)

Wordle and Other Blather

2009-04-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

(Click image for larger version.)

Sarah posted one of these in her blog last week, and I thought it was pretty neat. So I just went and did one for my site. It seems to only pull from whatever's on the top page, instead of the whole site, but it's still pretty fun. It's just too bad it doesn't seem to recognize "J" as a word, or else I'm sure it would be there, really large. :) (For those who may be wondering, the larger words are ones that appear most often.)

Today has been a day. It's all work stuff, so I won't get into it here - I'll just say that I'll be glad to sit down at home tonight, in my pajamas, and relax. Ahhh.

J and I went shopping on Sunday, and we got two collage frames to hang in our bedroom - I think I mentioned that already. I've been working on picking pictures to put in them, and I think as of tonight, they'll be almost all full. I just want a good picture of the two of us together to go in the 5x7 area in one of them. We need a good picture of just the two of us, anyway. And then, once I get those, the frames will be ready to hang. I've had fun going through pictures to put in them. I can't wait to see them on the wall.

Okay, I think that's all I have to share right now. It's almost time to go home, woo! Have a good night, everyone.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-04-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

Slumdog Millionaire
2009
Dev Patel
Anil Kapoor
Saurabh Shukla
Freida Pinto
Irrfan Khan

Yesterday J and I watched Slumdog Millionaire. I think this is a movie that would have been better watched in the theater, but I hardly ever see any of the Oscar nominees that way, so DVD will have to do.

First problem - there are a decent amount of subtitles, and they're sized very small - they were almost impossible to read on my small bedroom TV. But we managed to get the gist of what was happening, anyway.

But despite that, I got into the movie, and the two hours went by pretty quickly. I won't say too much about the plot of the movie, because this is one I'm sure most of you probably will see, unlike the ones from the 30s and 40s, and I don't want to spoil it for you. I will say that I liked the way it was set up, and that there was a story to go along with most of the questions Jamal was asked on Millionaire. It was fun to watch.

Was it worthy of winning best picture? I don't know. It didn't knock my socks off. It didn't haunt me when it was over, making me think about what happened. It was just a good movie. I haven't seen all of the nominees yet, but so far, I doubt this would have been my choice. Then again, if I had seen it on the big screen, or even on a much larger TV, maybe I would have felt differently.

I gave this movie 4 out of 5 stars.

And a small update on the state of my quest to watch all of the Best Picture Academy Award winners - I only have 29 to go! Woo! I am loving this whole project, too. I've seen some great movies that I may never have seen otherwise. I'm glad I'm doing this.

Next up - Gentleman's Agreement, from 1947.

Oops, Happy List, Wayne

2009-04-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

Oops! I screwed up the daily posting thing already. Sigh. I remembered last night as I was getting ready to go to bed that I hadn't posted yet, but I had already shut my computer off, and didn't feel like going and turning it back on. Oh well, I'll make it up by doing two posts today.

So, one day late, here is the happy list for last week!

Sunday: Spending the day with J! And it was cheat day, yum. Burgers, fries, cheese sticks, candy bars, Goldfish – all the forbidden foods become okay, for one day only.

Watching Ferris Bueller on DVD made me happy, too. I love 80s teen movies!

Monday: Watching two episodes of Buffy with J made me very happy. I love that show so much! And I love sharing it with him.

Also, snuggling little Sable. She’s the sweetest little black kitty around.

Tuesday: Listening to my music at work in the afternoon.

Spending a few hours with J.

Wednesday: J being home with me in the morning, before we both left for work.

Eating really well, riding the exercise bike and feeling good about myself.

Watching TV with J at night. :)

Thursday: J once again being home in the morning while I was getting ready. I love when he’s home with me in the morning.

Spending the evening with J. Watching Hell’s Kitchen! I love watching that show with J. It’s our fun TV night. ♥

Friday: Losing 1.75 more pounds, woo!

Spending the evening with J. Can you tell I like having him home at night? ♥

Saturday: Playing the Sims! I played Sims of me and J, in a beautiful Victorian house I built for us. It was fun.

Seeing J when he came home from work, and going to get groceries and dinner.

One thing becomes very clear when I read my own happy list - J makes me happy. ♥ Thanks, J. :)

I have a little more to talk about. Yesterday was my step-father's birthday. If he were still here with us, he would be 73. Which seems inconceivable to me, since he died when he was only 56, so he'll never be older than that in my mind. I love you Wayne, I miss you. I may not have said it in here yesterday, but I did think about you.

All about Eve

2009-04-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

All about Eve
1950
Bette Davis
Anne Baxter
George Sanders
Celeste Holm

I watched All about Eve this morning. I can't remember if I've ever watched a movie with Bette Davis in it before! I had that song in my head the whole time I was watching it. You know, "She's got! Bette Davis eyes!" There, now it's in your head, too.

I really liked this movie! In it, Bette Davis plays Margo, a middle aged famous stage actress, who is dating her director, and is good friends with her playwright and his wife. Anne Baxter plays the title character of Eve, a young woman who idolizes Margo and worms her way into her life. She acts as assistant to her, basically, and pretty soon is fully into Margo's life, handling things for her and taking care of as much as she can.

Which is when her true colors come out. I won't tell you more, because this is a movie worth watching, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who may watch it. And if you like old movies at all, you should watch it!

I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars.

Bernie

2009-04-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Bernie loves you. (And he's just gorgeous, isn't he?)

Happy Friday, people!

Spring is in the air

2009-04-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

It is so freaking gorgeous outside today, it's kind of killing me to be working inside, instead of sitting outside with the dogs or something. I love spring so much! I guess I'd say it's my favorite season now.

I walk outside in the morning, and the air is filled with the sound of birdsong. The sun is shining in my eyes as I drive to work. I don't need the heater in the car on the way home. I can take my jacket off on the way back from lunch, because it's too warm to be wearing it. The daffodils and tulips are sending their leaves through the dirt, and the daffodils even have some tightly closed buds on them, promising flowers soon.

The robins are back. The Canadian geese are back. We have a pair of mourning doves nesting in the tree outside of our dining room window, giving the cats something to watch all day.

It's a good time to be alive, don't you think?

Willow Says...

2009-04-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

That girl - the one who feeds me? She's posting every day in April. I'm sure she'll be posting lots of pictures of me and those other animals that she insists on letting live here, so be sure to check in every day this month, okay?

Now go away. I need to be alone with my tiny dog bed and my little red ball.

Love ya (but hate your dogs and cats, so don't bring them around me, okay?),

Willow

p.s. This is not an April Fool's joke. I'm Willow! I wouldn't lie to you. Now go on, get out of here. And take some of these damn dogs and cats with you, 'kay? Good.

Two More Movies

2009-03-27T12:51:00.001-07:00

Over the last two days, I watched two more Academy Award Best Picture winners.

You Can't Take It with You
1938
Jimmy Stewart
Jean Arthur
Lionel Barrymore
Edward Arnold

I LOVED this movie. Loved it. Not that my loving it was a huge surprise. It's a Frank Capra movie, and has a theme very similar to that of It's a Wonderful Life.

Basically, the story is this. Jimmy Stewart's character, Tony Kirby, is the son of a very wealthy business man, who is buying up all of the property on 12 city blocks in New York, in order to build some huge money making building. Tony holds the office of Vice President in his father's company, but since he is a wealthy man's son, it's mostly just a title. Tony has an office and a desk, but doesn't really do much. He does, however, have a secretary - Alice Sycamore, played by Jean Arthur.

Naturally, he falls for Alice, and wants to marry her. Alice is not only from a poor family - she's from the only family on that 12 block section of NYC that has said no to selling their house. For most of the movie, though, Tony's parents aren't aware of this fact.

Tony's parents are uptight rich people who look down on all below them (especially his mother). Alice's family is fun loving and is lead by her grandfather, who quit working 35 years before because he wasn't having any fun. Naturally, the two families clash quite a bit, even before you bring the property thing into it.

What I especially loved about this movie, is that Lionel Barrymore got to play a good guy, in direct contrast to a bad guy who was written very much like Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life (who he played), so it was like seeing Mr. Potter in an alternate life, where he wasn't such an ass. I liked him much more in this one, needless to say.

And I'm explaining it horribly, but this is a very fun, feel good movie that made me say, "I loved that" out loud when it ended. (It doesn't hurt that I always loved Jimmy Stewart anyway.) (Oh, and not only was Lionel Barrymore, who played Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life in this, but also the man who plays Alice's father? Also played Peter Bailey, George's Dad from It's a Wonderful Life. That was fun to spot.)

I gave this movie 5 out of 5 stars. :)

The Lost Weekend
1945
Ray Milland
Jane Wyman
Phillip Terry

This one is the story of an alcoholic, 10 days sober, left alone by his caretaker brother and his girlfriend for a whole weekend. Naturally, as soon as they leave him, he's off finding ways to secure the only thing he can think of - rye whiskey. And he proceeds to spend the entire weekend drinking. He has various misadventures over the course of the time his brother is gone, including being locked into an alcoholics ward in a hospital after a fall down a flight of stairs. He sees a disturbing hallucination, and basically goes through the typical ups and downs of a man with this kind of problem. During this time, he had to face himself and his problem, putting his girlfriend through hell in the process.

It's not exactly a fun movie, like the other one in this post, but it sure does show the bad sides of alcoholism. I found myself relating to it a lot as the family member of various people who have/had this problem. Mostly what I felt during it, though, was amazement that this man had been putting his brother and girlfriend through hell for so long, and yet they stuck with him. Not many people would. I found myself telling the girl to hit the road, because people like this don't change very often, in my experience, and when they do, it has to be their decision, not yours.

But, mostly, it just made me grateful that I have never even liked the taste of alcohol enough to drink more than a few sips. I can't imagine having to try to quit something that is this addictive.

This was a very good movie. Like I said, not a fun one, but a good one, with a good story to tell. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Numbers

2009-03-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

I seem to have decided that 2009 will be the year when I finally get a handle on my weight problem. We all know how diets work - they don't usually. But I'm not really on a diet. I'm not eating anything different, really (although I did substitute wheat bread for white on my lunch sandwiches at work). I'm still eating chips. I haven't had any chocolate, but only because I don't have any (and I can't be trusted not to eat a whole bag of it if I do have it).

No, instead I found this website called sparkpeople, where I can track my food and exercise every day. And I like it. I like it a lot. Tracking every morsel of food that enters my mouth feeds some compulsive side of me. I like figuring out how many calories I'm going to be eating at work, and how much I'll have left to eat at night when I get home. I like to plan my dinners, so that I know if I can afford to have a small bag of chips or a piece of bread and butter afterwards.

It satisfies me, somehow. The act of entering all of my food items for the day fills the part of me that would otherwise be looking for junk food to snack on, even though I'm not hungry and don't need it. It may sound weird, but it's working.

Will I stick with it? Will I have the flat belly I dream of in some reasonable time frame? Heck, there are almost 9 months before the end of the year. Will I be at goal before 2010 gets here? I have no idea.

But for now, I'm enjoying tracking my numbers; the number of calories I eat, which have to be within the range I can eat and still lose weight and be healthy; the number of minutes I spend walking to and from lunch at work; the number of minutes I spend on J's exercise bike at night. So many numbers. I like them.

It's fun to have a new (healthy) thing over which to obsess.

Yin and Yang

2009-03-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

This picture makes me smile. Rosie and Zelda, curled up together. Aww. :)

Stuff I've Done (and Not Done)

2009-03-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

I saw this list on Sarah's blog, and since I haven't gotten back in groove of updating here since the beginning of the year, and haven't been posting as much as I like to, I decided to do it, too. (Here's Sarah's list, by the way.)

Place an X by all the things you’ve done and remove the X from the ones you have not.

Things you have done during your lifetime:
(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
(X) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Canada.
( ) Been to Mexico.
(X) Been to Florida.
(X) Been to Hawaii.
(X) Been on a plane.
( ) Been on a helicopter.
(X) Been lost
( ) Gone to Washington, DC.
(X) Swam in the ocean.
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons.
( ) Sang Karaoke
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only.
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
( ) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving.
(X) Gone snowmobiling
( ) Lived in more than one country
( ) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
( ) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( ) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
(X) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
( ) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(X) Been to Disney World
( ) Truly believe in the power of prayer
( ) Been in a rain forest
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
( ) Ridden on an elephant
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
( ) Been to a Major League Baseball game
( ) Been to a National Football League Game

There are things on this list I wish I hadn't done (watched people die) and hope to never have to do again, and there are things on this list I would love to do someday (watch the sunrise with J, go to a Dolphins game with J, travel to some of the places listed here).

I'm not tagging anyone for this, but if you read this and do it yourself, let me know, so I can look at yours, okay? I'm on my way to Sarah's blog to let her know that I did it now.

Happy Saturday night, people.

You're the Best

2009-03-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

It's silly, but I just got two e-mails in a row, from people who work for the same company I do, thanking me for something I've done for them today. They even both used the words "You're the best," I believe. And it just makes me feel good. It's my job to do these things, it's not like it's anything special, but it's just nice to be appreciated, you know?

The "You're the best" e-mails make the work worthwhile.

Movie and Book Catch-Up

2009-03-18T07:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't been very good about writing in here about my progress on watching the Academy Award Best Picture winners and on reading 10 Pulitzer Prize winners. At this point, knowing myself as I do, I won't be writing an update about the ones I never wrote about, so just know that I've watched a couple more movies than I've written about, and I've read one more book than I've written about. :)

In an effort to be better about this, though, I will say that my next Pulitzer Prize winning book is on hold for me at the library, so I'll be starting that soon. I chose Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, which won in 2003. It looks like an interesting book, and I look forward to reading it.

As for the movies, Netflix is sending me All Quiet on the Western Front, so I'll have that tomorrow. And J and I watched Milk the other night. That's not a winner, but it is a current nominee, and I'm going to watch all the current movies that are nominated for Best Picture until my 1001 days are over.

Milk was a very interesting movie. Sean Penn did a great job, I can see why he won the Oscar for Best Actor. What surprised me is that this fight for gay rights has been going on for this long. I was only a small child for most of the time that this movie was set in, so I had no idea of the fight that was going on even back in the early 70s. It was interesting, though, to see some of the same arguments used from people who were trying to keep gay people from getting equal rights back then and in the present. Those arguments didn't make sense in 1972, and they don't make sense now, and yet they're still being spouted by people who think letting gay people get married and be equal in every way is going to hurt heterosexuals, or that it will go against their idea of God. Ugh. People just make me sick, they really do.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into that here, I just wanted to say that I was surprised by the fact that this fight was going on back then, and is still going on now. It seems like we'd have wisened up by now, you know?

This was a very good movie. I enjoyed watching it. It's not one I feel the need to own, but I enjoyed it. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

I had taken a break from reading the Pulitzer Prize winners, and watching the Oscar winners. It feels good to get back to them. I really can't wait, especially, to catch up on all the movies, and to be able to say that I have watched them all. Well, all except the ones that aren't on DVD (there are still a couple of the early ones).

Boring movie/book entry over. Resume normal activities. :)

A Correction and SU!

2009-03-13T05:39:00.000-07:00

First - I have a correction. I said yesterday that I had Frost/Nixon waiting for me to watch it. Well, no, I didn't. I had Frost Nixon - a documentary from the 70s. Sigh. The movie that I was actually trying to get isn't even out on DVD yet. D'oh!

Second - I really wish I was one of those people who could get through a day with very little sleep. SU played UConn last night in the Big East basketball tournament. They went into SIX overtimes and finally won the game. Woo! I watched a video highlight of it on ESPN this morning, and I really wish I could have been awake to watch it last night. But I know me - if I had stayed up watching the game until 1:30 in the morning, I would be dead on my feet today. It's really much better that I went to bed and got my sleep. Still, I would have loved to have seen it live.

Of course, the bad thing is now SU has to play West Virginia tonight, after playing a game plus 30 extra minutes last night - they're going to be exhausted. Here's hoping it doesn't hold them back.

Third - there is no third. That is all. :) Happy Friday, people.

Handwritten Entry! Sort Of

2009-03-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

Click on the image to read this - it imported really tiny. :)

Ick, Ick, Ick!

2009-03-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

J wasn't home with me last night - he stayed in Syracuse because of work. So I spent the night with the critters, playing the Sims and watching TV/DVDs. Finally the time came to head off to bed, so I closed things down and headed into the bathroom to get ready.

I walk in and head to the toilet, looking over the toilet at the wall and ceiling, like I always do, to check for spiders. It's all clear, so I sat down and peed, then got up and washed my hands.

I need a spider detection system upgrade or something, because what did I see on the curtain? The curtain that is right next to the toilet and mere inches from the sink where I was standing? You guessed it, a HUGE fucking spider.

I gasped, said "oh, fuck me," and walked out of the bathroom, shaking a little and maybe even hyperventilating mildly. I HATE spiders. Hate. Hate, hate, hate. Then I said, "why do these things always show themselves when J isn't here? Fuck."
Then I manned up, grew a pair (figuratively, not literally), went into the mudroom and fetched the vacuum cleaner, and went into the bathroom, fully armed and ready to do battle. I plugged that vacuum in, I put the extender wand on the hose (the spider was perched too high for just the regular hose), I took a deep breath to gather my courage, and then I vacuumed that fucker up.

He tried to get away. He heard the noise (I assume spiders can hear), he saw the wand coming at him, and he scurried. I jumped and almost ran, but I regathered my strength, and I sucked that fucker up. And then I vacuumed the curtains some more, just because. And then I put the hose, with wand extender still attached, back in its hole on the vacuum, and then I let it run for a minute, just to make sure that horrible, ugly, menacing creature was way down in that vacuum cleaner bag.

(Oh, and this right here is why I won't have a bagless vacuum anytime soon. If I had sucked him up in a bagless, I would have been able to SEE him scurrying around in that canister. Uh, no thanks. I want all of the spiders I suck into the vacuum cleaner to be surrounded by dirt, dog and cat hair and dark, until they slowly asphyxiate and die a horrible death.)

Anyway. So I won that battle, but now the ghost of that damn spider is going to be hanging out on my bathroom curtains for all time, just like it's cousin, who was once on the cabinet doors right in front of the toilet while I was sitting there doing my thing. If you know what I mean, and I think you do. (There's an entry about that in this here blog, which I'd link to if I could find it, but I don't feel like searching for it, sorry.)

I didn't even want to go into the bathroom to pee this morning. Ick. (I did, though.)

Stupid fucking spiders. Sigh.

Yum and Weather Weirdness

2009-03-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

J was at work most of the weekend, so he went grocery shopping without me. I love when he does that, because I hate grocery shopping (although it's less horrible going with him - he makes it more fun). Also, he sometimes brings me surprises. Like this, that he brought me yesterday:

I actually got excited when I saw this in one of the bags. Yes, I might need help. :D Seriously, though, I love these so freaking much. A regular bag doesn't last a whole day - this one may make it two or three days. Hee. (And he's helping me eat them, so it won't be just me making them disappear that fast.)

****

I'm having a weird feeling of weather foreboding. I live in an area where winter doesn't really end until the end of March, and spring comes in April. But it's March 9th now, and we're having temperatures in the 40s and 50s, with rain instead of snow. It's not quite normal, and it's making me hold my breath while I wait for the huge snow storm that surely has to be coming.

(But at the same time, there is a small hopeful part inside of me that is hoping for early spring flowers. I yearn to see a daffodil.)

****

The time change kicked my butt this morning. Well, that and the fact that I'm still fighting my tonsillitis (which seriously sucks, by the way. I am not a fan). I'm just starting to wake up, even though it's practically lunchtime. And I seriously feel a need for one of these:

I think I'm going to be picking one up on the way back from lunch. I need the caffeine today.

****

I was cleaning off my camera yesterday, and I took off a video of J playing with Willow. She was loving that little red ball that I showed her with in the picture of her in Duff's little bed (side note: she still loves Duff's bed, and still lays in it sometimes, even though it lives in a dog crate, which she hates, and she has her Willow Pillow right under the window). Anyway, so one day J played with her with it, and it was so funny. He'd take it from her, bend over in front of her like he was a football player, and call out the fake football stuff about blue 32 or whatever, and then he'd hike it to her. She'd take it and he'd run off, leaving her sitting there with the ball in her mouth. It's hysterical. It made me laugh so much when I watched the video yesterday. (And no, I can't share, so you'll have to take my word on the hilariousness of it.)

****

Okay, random entry over. Happy Monday, everyone! I hope the time change didn't kick your butt.

Tonsils Schmonsils

2009-03-06T07:11:00.000-08:00

Tuesday morning I woke up to a very swollen gland in the right side of my throat. I felt fine, but it was all swollen and tender to the touch. Over the course of the day, my throat was a tiny bit sore and I had a small headache, but they were easily taken care of with Advil.

Wednesday morning I woke up feeling horrible - sore throat, headache, sore, still swollen gland. I called in sick to work. I stayed in bed most of the day, watching TV and resting.

Thursday morning I woke up feeling even worse than I did on Wednesday. I went to work anyway, and made an appointment with the doctor for that afternoon. I made it through the day (grateful for Advil and for the fact that I sit at a desk all day), and went to my appointment in the afternoon. They did a strep test, which didn't show strep, but my tonsils are "nasty looking" according to the doctor, complete with pustules. So she decided to treat me for strep even without sending a culture out for further testing. I picked up my prescription on the way home, and have now taken two doses of antibiotics. I'm hoping to feel better soon, but right now my throat still hurts quite bit when I swallow - I haven't even eaten breakfast yet, because I'm a little afraid of how much my wheat cereal is going to hurt when I try to swallow it.

I hate being sick. :(

Quiet Life

2009-03-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

Did I write in here about the cold from hell? The one I had that has me still coughing pleghm out of my throat a whole two and a half weeks later? Well, just as it's starting to clear up, this morning I woke up with a very swollen and tender lymph node in the right side of my throat. I also have a slight headache and a very slight sore throat. If I get another sickness from hell, I will be SO MAD. Damn it. This is the bad part of working at a college - you get exposed to every sickness known to man. Sigh.

So, things have been pretty quiet in here lately - partly because I haven't felt like writing in here much after doing it every day for two months in a row, and partly because life has been kind of quiet, too. Which is nice, really.

My Sims desktop got a virus or malware or something horrible, and had to have its memory wiped and all of its programs reinstalled. Thankfully I was able to save my Sims game first, so all is well there. Although it took me about 8 solid hours to reinstall the game and get it working again. I'm happy to have it back, though (and thanks go out to J for that, because without him the computer would still be sitting at the repair shop, since I didn't have enough to pay for it - keep your computer clean, people, because if you don't you'll have to pay a fortune in repair bills).

I continue to love on my animals and J on a daily basis. As far as the animals go, Gracie and Sable have been especially lovey lately. And of course Zelda always is. Bernie and Willow are still being their usual lovable selves, as are Rosie and Duff. Even Lucy has been coming around asking for pettings lately, which I love. I have a special place in my heart for that cat, I really do. Okay, I have special places in my heart for all of them. It's amazing that they all fit, really.

Anyway. This is how quiet life has been - that's all I can think of to tell you about. So I'm going to end this post here. Toodles.

(And send me good health thoughts, please. I really don't want to be sick again.)

This Was Fun

2009-03-02T06:08:00.000-08:00

I stole this from Sarah:

1) Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band.
2) Then go to Random Quotations and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3) Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4) Use Photoshop or some other image editor to add text & spiffify.

(Those links will take you right where you need to go on those pages - I didn't realize that when I was stealing this from Sarah, so I did it the hard way. Save yourself the trouble and just click the links, kay? Kay.)

Here's what I got (the picture was photoshopped by me to make it more interesting, because it was boring).

Happy List, 2/22 - 2/28

2009-03-01T05:26:00.000-08:00

Sunday: Spending the day with J. Watching the SU game with him, and just hanging out. Watching the Oscars! I love them. Getting Bernie a new bed, which he seemed to appreciate. Seeing Willow somehow fit herself into Duff’s little bed. :) Too cute.

Monday: I may be just two months away from having a second credit card paid off! I’ll get to see J when I get home, for a few minutes, which I didn’t think I would. :)

Tuesday: Playing the Sims on my laptop. I was going through withdrawal!

Wednesday: Playing my legacy founder on my laptop. She’s fun. :)Seeing J! I miss him when he’s gone so much.

Thursday: Spending the evening with J! Watching Hell’s Kitchen, which I love watching with J. Getting my computer back! Thanks J. :)

Friday: Getting a sweet phone call from J while I was getting ready for work. :) Spending the evening with J – he even makes getting groceries fun. Getting a Willow Pillow! (A bed for Willow, which she loves.) Saying Willow Pillow over and over. Hee.

Saturday: Getting my game all reinstalled on my newly repaired desktop! (Thanks J!) Then getting rid of a piece of custom content that was messing with the Sims’ ability to make phone calls. Sigh. Why it couldn’t just be easy to put my game back together I don’t know, but I’m really glad to have it back. Watching the new Futurama movie with J at night before falling into bed like I hadn't slept in weeks, I was so tired.

Ahh, Caffeine...

2009-02-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

I love my Diet Pepsi sometimes. I try not to drink too much of it - I quit altogether when I realized I was addicted to the caffeine, and now I try to stick to just drinking it on the weekends.

But then there are days like today. I stayed up late on Sunday night watching the Oscars. I shouldn't have, because I've never been a person who could stay up late and get up early and not feel any repercussions from it. But I did it anyway, and while I felt fine yesterday, today it caught up with me, and I am exhausted.

So on the way back from lunch, I picked up a bottle of Diet Pepsi. I've drank about half of it, and now I feel fine.

Thank goodness for my little caffeine wielding friend. :)