Monday, February 27, 2006

Spring...sorta

For some reason I have it in my head that spring starts in March. I expect the weather to instantly become warm, the sun to shine, and my tulips that are almost halfway out of the ground to bloom miraculously. Really, I think I've got daffodils. Not even ones I planted. At least, I don't remember ordering daffodils. But never mind that, that's not the plot of my blog. It's a three parter, each part exceptionally short.

Part 1: I don't know what those yellow flowers that bloomed under my tree where I planted bluebells are, except that they are not bluebells. I am not even sure I planted them. My crocus' came up early, and therefore, did not blossom. I"m hoping next year I'll actually get flowers out of them. Right now, I've got green leaves. So here's hoping the tulips sprout up. They might, my neighbors tulips are about the same height, and like, she seems to know what she's doing in the gardening area.

Part II. I'm annoyed with this guy: http://lifestyle.msn.com/men/article.aspx?cp-documentid=259927 I mean yeah okay fine, he's a stay at home dad, but you know what, whenever he says this shit, people think it's cute. When talks about 'balancing work with being a stay at home dad' people think it's a 'real struggle that he pulls off well' and give him kudos, what a guy, horrah. When I say shit like that, people think I'm just not nurturing, because all nurturing good moms think NOTHING about the total grossness of wiping kids' asses... and man, they assume that as a stay at home mom, any work I may be trying to balance is involved with stuff you sell at parties. Okay, so my main work right now is totally not paid, and I'm thinking of turning it into a romance piece which is just another stereotype, but that's what happens when you leave a story to long. This week's goal is to finish chapter ten no matter what. But I wanted to share my annoyance. What he writes about, in the average day of a stay at home mom, is soooo not worth writing about.

Part III. So, when one is pudgy, say, one doesn't really notice in any great detail those 'pockets' of say, stuff, that lingers around the outer thigh area. One may assume that it's just one big pocket of stuff because it seems to look like one big pocket, and it certainly is everywhere there is thigh... but then, so one starts working out, and all of a sudden, one sees that really, there are more than one pocket of this stuff hanging there. And some of the pockets are gone, making it easier to define the remaining um, stuff, as pockets, versus one giant pocket. Pockets is more inspiring. One could say, 'ooh one pocket down, two to go' or something. Either that or the one big pocket shrunk to a small pocket. I suppose all that really matters, is I look almost good in jeans again. This MAY be enough to motivate me to get up early tomorrow and do some actual outside cardio, since I don't think I'm making it to the gym. But probably not. I've discovered its' best if I limit my gym/workouts to no less than 3 but no more than 4 workouts. Less than 3, no results. More than 4, I get tired of it. But at least I'm seeing enough to be motivated.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

A Slight Huff

Well, I didn't lose a size in clothing however, oddly, I lost a shoe size... ookay... that is weird...

Now, I discovered this buying a pair of shoes last night. I bought two pairs of cool shoes for summer, because if I wait til Summer, there will only be winter shoes on sale. I'm going to relay the conversation I had with the cashier relating to the coupon I used when buying these two pairs of shoes... buy one, get one-half price off the other... with of course, comments.

Go to cashier feeling moderately pleased with self for actually using two coupons...
Coupon one: Buy two Russell Athletic T-Shirts, get one free
Coupon two: Buy one pair of shoes, get one pair half price

"Hi" *paraphrasing*
"Hi"
"Find everything okay"
"yeah"
*medium sized pause while everything is rung up... watching screen...
"Um, did the shoe coupon go through?"
"Yes it should be on the screen"
"I see one coupon I don't see the other one"
*Not getting what I'm saying she finishes the order, assures me it went through and I pay so I can get my hands on the receipt
"Okay, I don't see the other coupon on here"
"See, it's right there..." She points to the -12 dollars for the first coupon.
"I see that coupon, I mean the shoe coupon isn't on here... buy one get 1/2 price off"
*This is where it gets good.
She goes through her coupon envelope, and picks out another buy two shirts get one off coupon. "You gave me two coupons for these, you can only use one."
"I gave you one for the shirts. That's not the second coupon though, I gave you a coupon for shoes, buy one get one 1/2 price."
"No you didn't give me that coupon you only gave me one, see, I don't have it. There's no other coupon."
*Now, up until now, I think I have been very patient, but now she's telling me that I am lying. Instead of helping resolve the issue, she tells me I didn't give her a second coupon for shoes. So I look over her shoulder and point to the shoe coupon.
"That coupon, I gave you that coupon too, buy one get 1/2 price off, I didn't get half price off my shoes."
*I am about to take my shoes back, I'm getting aggravated.
*She calls for the manager who is on the floor. I explain the SAME thing to him.
"It's right here, -12 dollars for the shirts." *silent scream to whoever's listening up there
"Right, that coupon, but not theother coupon for the shoes"
"You can only use one coupon" *now I pretend to be baffled, i can only use one store coupon per purchase, even if they are for different items?
"Oh, I"m sorry, where does it say that, I must have missed it, I thought I could use two different coupons if it was different products..." *Because it DOESN'T say that, it says you can only use one coupon per purchase for that product....
"Here, you have to buy two shirts and you get a third free... you can't use two coupons with these shirts." *Apparently, the way I say shoes sounds just like shirts.
"Okay, right, but what about my coupon for the shoes? Buy one get one half price?"
A small light dawns.
"Shoes?"
"Right, this coupon here, buy one shoes get 1/2 price off second pair of shoes?"
"Go over there, he'll take care of you."
FINALLY I get the smart guy.
"Hmm" he says "We've never had a problem with shoes before." SHOES he says, SHOES... he so gets me.
Now, I'm going to tell you something, I knew what happened. She didn't ring the damn coupon in. But I couldn't SAY you didn't ring it in, because they were too busy telling me she rang the shirt coupon in. They didn't want to acknowledge the shoe coupon.
He says...
"She didn't ring it in, that was the problem."
Me...
"Oh, really? Was that all?"

AAAAHHHHH

But I didn't yell, fuss, scream, holler, insult, call names or ANYTHING. SO go me.

Friday, February 17, 2006

A Good Night

Tonight was a very good night.

And most people won't know why til next week....

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Husbandly redemption

I'm getting an Ipod Shuffle nano thingie gadget in white, with a blue armband for working out, that can download more songs than I have ever heard of. Husbando outo el dog houso.

He was in it for a bit for Valentine's Day. OKAY he was stressed that day, we had stuff going on, but COME ON. But the Ipod thing, I can forgive him. I am writing Valentine's Day off as a holiday for me. They usually suck. I'm creating a new day. It's going to be called 'Lisa Day' and on that day, my husband can buy me flowers, a present, and take me to dinner or cook me a nice meal. I just need to think of a good day. That way, we can skip the whole freakin' Valentine Day thing *it turns out, he didn't buy me chocolate because he didn't want to sabotage my work-out-get-fit plan, because when he bought twinkies, he got yelled at.... and he wasn't up to eating at Applebees.... grrr. So I think I'll pick a day in like, June, after our anniversary, before our birthdays and not in holiday season.... it'll be Be Nice to Wife and Appreciate Her and Buy Her Stuff day, but it should work, because it'll cancel out Valentine's Day...

In other non-exciting news, I lost an inch. Go me. Been to the gym four days this week. Go me again. Going tomorrow. Really, go me. That'll be five days in a row. I don't do weekends. Unfortunately, the only time slot my trainer and I can do is 6 a.m. Mondays and Wednesdays, and soon to be Mondays and Thursdays. But yikes. 6 a.m.? Well, at least I don't have to drag the kids. I tried enjoying the early morning wake up thing by stopping for a coffee after, but then I realized the very thought of coffee after working out was pukifying. Maybe it was just that one day, because I drank two glasses of wine? Maybe my trainer was grumpy because I was 10 minutes late? I mean, come on, 6 a.m. takes some getting used to... Maybe I was just off that day. Anyhow, tomorrow I need to do weights, but I am not particularly excited about it. I'm still not sure of what weights to do in what order, so I do my shmorgasboard thing, because something has got to be better than nothing. Oh, and I have a card, apparently ha ha ha, that the trainer fills out so I know what to do when they aren't around. I suspect my trainer hasn't filled mine out yet. I will ask him about that on Monday. Since I do weights with him he probably hasn't bothered. I'm only doing weights tomorrow because on Monday I suspect he will play on the whole 'lack of tricep' thing and really, have you ever had sore triceps? Honestly, have you ever actually FELT anything in your triceps? Think about it... Oh and the bit under your armpits, toward the back. I mean, really...

The girls at the gym are so nice. They remind me of me at 18 and 19. We had a riveting conversation about the last five hair colors they had... ahh, youth.

Night...

Monday, February 13, 2006

Disconnect

I am sooo not the traveling/visiting kinda gal. I am soo not connecting with any of the mom's at the mom's club. Maybe the book club I am starting *in a desperate attempt to find people that actually can enjoy the things I enjoy* will help. I used to connect to people. Now I'm this disconnected entity just roaming aimlessly out in the Northwest trying to find some conduit that doesn't go 'bzzzt' and frazzle out when it comes into contact with me.

In fact, I think I'm just aimless. I'm like, free data just floating out there... not attatched or connected, just roaming around, floating, aimlessly, purposelessly...

bleah.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Little Things Some People Should Think About

When you go crying to your spouse that you have sooo much stuff to do, two mid-terms and your regular homework, and she says, 'Okay dear, well, I think if I wake up early and go straight to the computer, I can get all my stuff done by 3 or 4, and cram, just so you can have some more time to do your stuff tonight, while I watch the kids' then your response should be, 'Great, thank you honey,' which is what the response was, that's great.

But, the worst thing to do, and the one thing that will guarantee that I have too much homework to ever do this for you again, is, while I am cramming away, sans break, eating lunch at the computer and waking up a half an hour early, not even taking a coffee break, is, WHILE i'm doing this, WHILE I'm doing my case study, my essay and my module, not having a coffee or tea break, the thing to NOT do is be taking a nap, snoring, SNORING right behind me...

For those who are dense, it's because if you have time to take a nap, I do not need to be working double-time to give you more time, sacrificing the ONLY time I have!

Ya think one would think....

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Goodnight

Good night Everyone.

A Day

I started my Master's program. I don't know what I'm going to do with it when I'm done. It's not the field of my dreams. It's just the field that offers the program that I can actually do, that's related to my original, and as it turns out, one of the few, fields I'm suited for. Anyhow, if I waited a couple of years, I could get the masters in education, but in a couple of years, I won't get G.I. bill money, it'll run out.... so I'd rather have the GI bil and a masters in management, and then go figure what to do with the rest of my life if my first 'rest of life' plans don't work out. My first 'rest of life' plans are my favorites, but we should all have back ups to our dreams.

Tonight, for my sanity, I'm in my room, and I will not leave until my daughter is in bed. I love her, I really do, but some nights, it's best if we are separated. She's only 9. When she's 13 I'm moving her to the basement room, and when she's 16, I'll probably rarely see her. When she's 21, she is so moving out. I can hear her banging things in the kitchen. She can not do anything quietly. She doesn't know how. Ah well. Tomorrow I am going to be working in my room all morning and my husband gets to deal with all the children... go him. I'm patiently waiting til 9 p.m. when I put her to bed and munch on cheese and bread with dipping oil... mmmmm.

So my wonderful Thursday and Friday.

On Thursday I get panic emails. Turns out my group, a total of five of us, in our class all misread the syllabus. I use misread inaccurately. We read the syllabus correctly. The instructor organized it poorly. The result being that on Thursday, we all found out our project, which wasn't supposed to be due til next wednesday by our reckonings, was a day late. We sent a brief 'we're sorry but wow we all were sure it said next wednesday' email to our instructor and then proceeded to do whatever it took to get it done and posted early this morning. Of course, two of the five, me included, didn't have the case study. One because she was out of town, the other, being me, because I assumed it was all downloadable. It was all downloadable, except for ours. No problem, we have FAXES! So Thursday night we had a great windstorm, the kind that you toss and turn through because it's noisy, but not quite noisy enough to wake you, only noisy enough to permeate your dreams and make you uneasy. The power went out a few tims throughout the night. Then, at 4:30 a.m. my husband and I were woken fully by the crackling sounds of a fax coming through. Thirty nine loud pages later, I was almost about to declare myself awake and make coffee. Then the wind blew out the power, thankfully after the last page came through, and I regained my sanity, and went back to bed. I woke up an hour and a half later. I stumbled through the morning, even managing to go to the gym for a pathetic 30 minute cardio workout, and then breezed through the case study, lobbed together some coherent thoughts, sent it off, and took a nap. I was done. That night I got on and chatted with the one classmate that is constantly wired, she compiled everything, we reviewed it, and oula, Saturday morning, it was posted, and the instructor declared that the discussion wouldn't need to be extended. I'm hoping he doesn't take points off since we, once we discovered it was actually due on Wednesday, got it together so fast. And it was his bizarre syllabus outline that messed us up. Whatever. HA HA

So that was my day of hell, oh and I had to drive huband to and from work, pick up our car where I accidentally got trapped in a long conversation with the mechanic dude with an accent I kept trying to place, but couldn't, so lets just call it slightly Australian, but probably lightly Canadian, and some nice eyes... but I'm a chick and I really didn't think he'd actually EXPLAIN everything to me until he was sure I understood it... *I can now explain what clogged injectors look like and the effect they have on your engine. I can explain the purpose of callipers, and I can tell you absolutely what part the sensors played in stalling my engine... learn something new every day.... AND to top off the day,

THEY KILLED BILLY THE BASTARDS

How could they?

I mean, seriously, how could they? He was the future. He was the golden child. He was the idealist that would carry them them through. He was the only non-contaminated soul.

But no, they kill him.

GRRRR cuz he tried to protect a woman who's probably a cylon who was hoping to get it on with the Admiral's son... so that's what you get...


And that, my friends, is A Day.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

bad call after bad call...

I agree with this:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5310192

I'm happy for the Steelers, but these referees were an embarassment. They called the worst game in history. It's like, riding the wave of Steeler fans, they did whatever they could to call against Seattle.

Maybe that's why I was so numb. The Seahawks just got bad call after bad call after bad call... oh and Roth SO did not get that touchdown.

SuperNumb

I think this was the most underwhelming superbowl for me. Yeah it was Seattle's first appearance, and personally, I think there were some dumb calls that went against them, and some that shouldn't have gone to Pittsburgh, but all in all, I think they both played decently. I just didn't care who won. I tried to. I like both teams, but I tried to rouse optimism for Seattle, since I live here. I'm a Pats fan by the fact I grew up there, and I went through a phase where I loved the Steelers, but I'm not as big a Steelers fan as I was when I was 10, and I've been rooting for the Seahawks most of this season. I watched the game, but I just couldn't get into it. Maybe the calls ruined the momentum for me. Maybe the toddlers rampaging in front of the television did it. Maybe my husband's rantings at the referees did it. Whatever it was, I just gave up watching the game for minutes at a time. I missed the entire first quarter. I left the televison during the fourth. It just wasn't rousing. Somewhere between the second and third quarter, I just didnt' care who won. So what happened between the second and third quarter? Oh yes, Mick Jagger, a Brit, singing a lackluster 'Start You Up.' Or maybe it was the completely boring superbowl ads. Maybe it was the lack of a singular scandalous moment. I don't know what it was. But it made me not care.

So the Steelers won, and I KNOW there is an entire population of Steelers fans out there rejoicing to their hearts content, while those disheartened Seahawks fans savor the fact they were at least there... But either way, it's finally over.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

2nd week

Down 4 lbs.

WOOT.


Incentive to attempt taking my clinging monkey son to the babysitting room at the gym again.

HE WILL NOT SABOTAGE MY GET FIT PLAN...

Toddlers.... gotta love em.

I just hate being 'that' mom, you know, the one who's kid sits there and cries while his mean mom ignores him, happily working on the machines, secretly dreading the moment when "WILL MEMBER WHO"S KID IS REDDER THAN A TOMATO PLEASE RETURN TO THE BABYSITTING ROOM. HIS TEARS HAVE FLOODED THE PLAY AREA" comes over the loudspeaker.

It's embarassing when your well known at the gym as the mom with that kid.... I know no one's name, the 10 a.m. crowd all know mine...

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Today

I wish I just took another history degree.
I could enjoy taking history classes.

But no, I set my sights on a master's. My ambition isn't practical to my dreams. What else is new? I think sometimes my problem is I want two lives, when what I really should do is just focus on the one I really want, the one that matters. But maybe the master's will help, maybe the forced firing of brain cells that have been sleeping, will wake up some latent creativity.

Or maybe I'll end up writing more while I procrastinate my assignments for this class.

I have an essay to write tomorrow. I actually need to use and quote references properly.

I am so not looking forward to it. At the same time, I want a good grade. Some childhood things just stay with us.

Oh, not that I always got good grades, but I always did want them...