I'm sorry it's been so long. But maybe you're not sorry? Who knows. As you might have inferred from my last post, I was in a very necessary period of mourning following the death of my first love.
But I'm moving on. I have embarked on a journey. It will be an odyssey, and it may never end. The Sirens' song may persuade me to never turn back. Or the journey may abruptly and disastrously, my vessel sinking to the bottom of the sea like the Costa Concordia. Only time will tell.
I have begun the 'oil cleansing method'. It will either be the best or worst thing ever. This is the kind of thing that leaves no room for a middle ground. Either my face will explode in a 4th of July fireworks display of volcanic acne, or I will be left radiant and glowing like Sophia Loren but way, way younger. And paler.
So far, my impression leans towards the latter. Somehow, some way, smearing a 50/50 blend of olive oil and castor oil on my face twice a day for the last month has left my skin soft, unblemished, and, counter-intuitively, less greasy than ever. I think I'm a convert. The hideous painful dryness that had plagued me since we arrived in Utah, that left my face feeling like it was going to crack and crumble off of my skull, is gone. Also gone is the oil slick that daily erupted from my T-zone, luring the Daniel Plainviews and the 14-year-old boys alike.
Also, I could swear my acne scars have faded noticeably just in the last month. After I observed this just from doing the oil cleansing, I bought a bottle of pure vitamin E oil and started applying that at night to speed things up. I might just be seeing what I want to see, but it seems to be really working. I wish I would have done this years ago! Then maybe the mean person who commented, on a LiveJournal I kept back in the Stone Ages, that my cheeks looked like rodents had chewed on them, would have had to find some other way to traumatize me and make me self-conscious for a good decade. Thanks, a-hole, I still remember your insult, and it still hurts, so, mission accomplished. You must be so proud.
ALSO also, why don't more dermatologists recommend this skin care regimen? I mean...clearly you can still make bank recommending that your patients go raid their own kitchen cabinets. That's every bit as lucrative for you as dishing out prescriptions for Accutane and Retin-A and every other exorbitantly priced yet extremely dangerous medicine or caustic skin cream. Right?
For further evidence that this oil thing is working, I had a dream last night that I was washing my face with regular facewash. Oddly, I have dreamed about washing my face before, but this time, there wasn't that feeling of relief that I had forced myself to wash my face despite being dead tired, or that I had remembered to wash my face even though I was drunk, or any of the standard face-washing dreams. This time, I realized I was washing my face with chemicals, and I was HORRIFIED. Oh, the sulfides. My god, the sulfates. Just believe me when I say it was just awful. I was so worried that I had just thrown away a month of effort, and had thrown off the balance of my skin with one careless act. I am not even embarrassed to say that I awoke with a start, touched my face to confirm that it was only a terrible dream, and fell back to sleep feeling relieved.
I think I'm a convert.
(Andy just thinks I'm one step away from searching for my spirit animal in the woods and ceasing to shave my legs)
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Day Dream Disbeliever
This is just awful. There is no possible news that it would be sadder to receive on a Leap Day. There is no easy way to say it. You guys, Davy Jones is dead.
That adorable, pocket-sized British crooner of Monkees fame died of a heart attack today at the age of 66. I was in a meeting when the news broke, and I returned to my desk to gchat messages from both my mom and husband, flippantly breaking the news as if this were on the same level as Whitney Houston dying or a Kardashian doing something trashy. Andy even used the letters 'btw' to introduce this horrendous revelation, as if it were a mere aside to something more important. No. No, guys. I'm glad you thought of me when you heard the news, but this is not casual mention sort of information. This is not secondary information. This is sit me down, get me some tea and tissues, tell me gently knowledge. It is important.
Davy Jones was my first love. Somehow, I can clearly remember sitting on the coffee table in a full straddle (if you can, why not?), watching Monkees reruns on our very timeless wood-framed tv set. The year was 1987. I was two. I didn't know much (including but not limited to not knowing how to use a toilet on my own, and not understanding the intricacies of syndication, which allowed me to experience this then-42-year-old man as a much younger but still-inappropriately-old person for me to fancy) but I knew I loved that tiny man-boy with the charming accent. Someday, he would be mine.
Fortunately and unfortunately for me, my mom's infatuation with D-Jo began in a more legitimate fashion when she was a wee teenager and young Davy was at the height of his fame in the late 1960s. So we indulged in our unhealthy, creepy obsession together. Until my little toddler brain moved on and formed a very concerning ménage amongst myself, Bert, and Bob, both of Sesame Street renown. Yes, a unibrowed, yellow, felt puppet of questionable (if any) sexuality and a kindly, middle-aged man who was undoubtedly great at spelling one-syllable words and counting to ten.
But I digress. This is not a catalogue of my strange celebrity crushes. This is about Davy. He will be missed. I wish him a safe journey as he rides that Last Train to Clarksville in the sky.
I will always remember him as a fresh-faced sprite with a dreamy voice and surprisingly white teeth for a British man.
And I will always want to strangle Marcia Brady out of jealousy for this:
P.S. I left him off my daddy/boyfriend list on purpose. He might have been biologically old enough to be my grandpa, but in my mind he has always been all-boyfriend, all. the. time.
That adorable, pocket-sized British crooner of Monkees fame died of a heart attack today at the age of 66. I was in a meeting when the news broke, and I returned to my desk to gchat messages from both my mom and husband, flippantly breaking the news as if this were on the same level as Whitney Houston dying or a Kardashian doing something trashy. Andy even used the letters 'btw' to introduce this horrendous revelation, as if it were a mere aside to something more important. No. No, guys. I'm glad you thought of me when you heard the news, but this is not casual mention sort of information. This is not secondary information. This is sit me down, get me some tea and tissues, tell me gently knowledge. It is important.
Davy Jones was my first love. Somehow, I can clearly remember sitting on the coffee table in a full straddle (if you can, why not?), watching Monkees reruns on our very timeless wood-framed tv set. The year was 1987. I was two. I didn't know much (including but not limited to not knowing how to use a toilet on my own, and not understanding the intricacies of syndication, which allowed me to experience this then-42-year-old man as a much younger but still-inappropriately-old person for me to fancy) but I knew I loved that tiny man-boy with the charming accent. Someday, he would be mine.
Fortunately and unfortunately for me, my mom's infatuation with D-Jo began in a more legitimate fashion when she was a wee teenager and young Davy was at the height of his fame in the late 1960s. So we indulged in our unhealthy, creepy obsession together. Until my little toddler brain moved on and formed a very concerning ménage amongst myself, Bert, and Bob, both of Sesame Street renown. Yes, a unibrowed, yellow, felt puppet of questionable (if any) sexuality and a kindly, middle-aged man who was undoubtedly great at spelling one-syllable words and counting to ten.
But I digress. This is not a catalogue of my strange celebrity crushes. This is about Davy. He will be missed. I wish him a safe journey as he rides that Last Train to Clarksville in the sky.
 |
| source |
And I will always want to strangle Marcia Brady out of jealousy for this:
 | ||
| source |
P.S. I left him off my daddy/boyfriend list on purpose. He might have been biologically old enough to be my grandpa, but in my mind he has always been all-boyfriend, all. the. time.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Are You My Father?
When that big, bearded Pat Sajak in the sky spun the wheel of fortune that would determine who my mother would be, the wheel landed on 'Caribbean Cruise'. My mom is awesome, and fun. Except when she is lecturing me about winter highway safety via Gchat from 2000 miles away, like she is at this moment. But still, I love her. However, when Deity Pat Sajak spun the wheel a second time, for my father, he landed on 'bankrupt'. I mean, this was the 80's, so Pat was probably plastered at the time, but still. Bad move. My dad was not winning any Father of the Year awards. I will leave it at that for now.
[Sidenote: I can't stand Wheel of Fortune. I just. Can't. Stand it.
I was raised by my mom and grandmom, with minimal, mostly unpleasant weekend interludes with my father that usually entailed him watching football with his buddies and getting drunk while I sat in a corner reading a book with my shirt collar over my face to block out some of the second-hand smoke. Because of this, I sometimes fantasize about who I would pick for a dad if I had a choice. As a purely hypothetical exercise, I even allow myself to be a little creepy and pick would-be fathers based on how hot they are. Sometimes, that makes me question my sanity, so I was thrilled to realize I'm not the only person with some kind of disturbing Electra complex when I read this post on Hello Giggles last week. The author makes some intriguing selections for her list of "Men I Would Equally Like to Date and Have Be My Father," including the obvious George Clooney and the highly questionable Jerry Orbach.
I think my list would not be that inappropriate from a romantic perspective, but it is much less realistic on the father side with respect to the ages/sexual orientations of these potential incestuous suitor-fathers.
1. Jon Hamm
2. Woody Allen
No incest issues there. Nope. Also, bonus, Jewish.
3. Elton John
I already have had the experience of basically being raised by two moms, albeit straight ones, so I bet it would be a hell of a ride to have two dads, one of whom is Elton freaking John.
4. Brad Pitt
He has so many kids already, what's one more? He won't even notice. And maybe...just maybe...in a really dark room...if he was under the influence of a fistful of roofies...he might mistake me for his wife.
5. Tom Hanks
Consistently regarded as one of the nicest and most trustworthy people in Hollywood. How could you go wrong? His real-life son seems to have turned into a decent human being, so there's that. Just as long as he's more like the Tom Hanks from Apollo 13 and not Forrest Gump.
6. Jeff Bridges
The dude abides, that's all I'm saying.
7. Bert
I can't even begin to explain this one, suffice to say that there was a very long succession of plush Bert dolls that never left my tiny little fist during my entire toddlerhood.
8. Clint Eastwood
Boyfriends of the past would have cowered in sheer terror if Clint Eastwood answered the door. Clint Eastwood via Dirty Harry or Gran Torino would have ripped multiple new ones in the handful of misguided, ritalin-addled kids who tormented me from 6th through 8th grades.
9. Paul Newman
We have this picture in our house of Paul Newman that guests often mistake for a picture of Andy. Around 1970, my grandmom went through a decoupage phase. For my mom, she Mod-Podged a magazine cutout of a profile view of Paul Newman, sitting in a rowboat drinking coffee, onto an 8" x 10" wooden plank. Years later, I found it in a closet and made it my own. Paul Newman was an all-around good guy and philanthropist, and I have a feeling that with eyes that blue, he could have grounded me for a year and I wouldn't have cared.
10. Anderson Cooper
The quintessential silver fox. He's so smart, and witty, and cute! Have you ever SEEN that video of Anderson giggling? I'm too lazy to find it now, but just google "Anderson Cooper giggling" and I'm sure you'll find it.
Wildcard: Ellen DeGeneres
Who says a woman can't be a father? My mom and grandmom basically had to be both mother AND father for me. I bet Ellen would do a bang-up job, too.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Goal Check-in
Little baby 2012 is almost 2 months old. If this year were a human baby, it would probably be walking and eating solids and speaking three languages and possibly studying for its MCAT by now. I don't even know what I'm saying, I know nothing about child development, which might be a problem some day. But I have to assume that any child of mine will be super advanced, because, obviously. Anyway, this might be a good time to revisit some of my goals/not-resolutions for 2012. As you may recall, there were a lot, and some were rather ambitious. I kind of only want to touch on the ones I've been rocking, because self-esteem is a finite resource and I don't want to squander it by reminding myself of my failures.
1. No hangovers. I hope you can still hear me over the thunderous applause as my legions of supporters put their hands together to celebrate my success thus far. Not one iota of hangover. Not even the teensiest headache from red wine overindulgence. I did, however, feel like I was going to die when I ate a big cookie and drank some hot chocolate (think worst skull splitting pain one can experience without giving birth to an alien baby through one's forehead). So consider me duly chastised for consuming too much of something, at any rate.
2. Cook new recipes. Also a big time victory so far. There are so many great places on The Internets to find exciting, healthy recipes! Some of my favorites are Whole Living, the blog My New Roots, and Martha Rose Shulman's 'Recipes for Health' for the New York Times. Pinning these recipes to my 'Noms' board on Pinterest hasn't hurt this newfound ambition, either. When I joined Pinterest I was determined not to let my boards languish in the purgatory of 'ideas forsomeday never". I've kept my promise, at least on the food-themed board.
I think I've managed to add some keepers to my cooking repertoire. It's been good to liven up the rotation, and it makes me feel creative instead of feeling as though coming home and getting right into the kitchen is some kind of drudgery. My absolute favorite new thing I tried was this outrageous recipe for chocolate cookies...made with black beans and cayenne pepper! So, so so good and with very little sugar and loads of fiber so I can actually eat them without feeling like someone drove railroad spikes through my temples. I think, with the exception of Christmas, I have become so used to eating very little sugar, outside of natural sugars found in fruits and orange juice, that I find myself having really strong reactions to processed sugar. This is a good thing, really, but sometimes a lady just wants to eat a cookie, okay?
Other winners include this unusual recipe for savory bread pudding with kale and mushrooms from NYT. Try it. You and your mouth will not regret it. I added a chopped onion, because it's not dinner in our house without an onion in the mix. Even Andy liked it, so much so that he took the leftovers for lunch today. If you are at all familiar with his aversion to eating the same thing two days in a row, this was kind of a big deal for me.
Last week I made this frittata with ricotta, spinach, and tomato (and onions, obvi). That was decent, if a little bland, but nothing some Tapatio hot sauce couldn't fix.
On Sunday, I whipped up this Mediterranean fish chowder that I thought was bangin'. Andy's verdict was 'meh'. Too bad, son, Tuesday night is leftovers night so I can get to yoga by 7:30!
Later this week, I'll be making a spicy chickpea stew and a quinoa-garbanzo-spinach-feta salad. I'm glad that even though I will be essentially eating chickpeas for the next four nights (factoring in leftovers from each recipe), I can switch it up and call them garbanzos just for S's and G's.
I also made a really sweet quiche so I could finally use the pie server I got for Christmas. That was delicious, as always, and I made it slightly less unhealthy than it would otherwise be by swapping out half the flour for whole wheat flour in the crust, and using less cheese. Then there was the Jewish lentil soup that I thought was awesome but Andy couldn't get past its resemblance to baby poop.
Ooh, and I finally made sweet potato fries that weren't totally soggy! And I'm sure I made some other stuff that very likely involved beans, onions, garlic, quinoa, or all three. Point is, there has been some inspired cooking going on (along with some very uninspired phoning-it-in dinners as well, but hey, pobody's nerfect). [Don't laugh at that. I'm already embarrassed for quoting a joke from The Office that sounds more like it should have come from the mouth of Ned Flanders.]
3. Exercise more consistently. Unfortunately, this area has not seen the spectacular progress of my first two goals, but we're getting there. Last week, I walked to work and back every single day. That's about an hour of walking each day, and 18 total miles! So that's pretty cool. I also went to yoga on Tuesday night, pilates on Saturday morning, and did a workout with free weights on Sunday. The Sunday before last, we went cross country skiing for about an hour and a half. Aside from last week, which was really a banner week, exercise-wise, I have been walking to and from work often and making it to yoga and pilates on the regular.
8. Get a new kitty. No HIV or full-blown AIDS. She was a keeper. A sweet, cuddly, scratchy, bitey, little gremlin, but we kept her. She and Ajax were getting along swimmingly, even grooming each other (which was even more adorable than it sounds) but then Hadley was spayed and things changed. I don't know if it was the hospital smell when she came back, or some hormone changes, or what, but Ajax really wants nothing to do with her. He hisses at her and tries to avoid her, but she's still all "Let's play! And by play I mean let me pounce on you and bite you and steal your food!"
10. Blog more. Hello. Sporadically is more often than never, so let's chalk this one up to a little victory.
11. Paint the master bedroom and office. I painted the master bedroom a few weeks ago, and it makes a huge difference. It's much more 'bedroom' and much less 'cell'. We're just waiting for closet doors and lamps for the night stands.
The past two weekends, instead of painting the office, I tackled the 'man cave', which is the giant room with the fireplace in our finished basement. It's pretty sweet, even though all we have down there right now is a couch and a TV. Eventually, Andy wants to build a bar across from the fireplace. Ironically, now that I've painted it, that's probably the last time I'll ever be allowed in there. A 'no girls allowed' sign will probably be making an appearance in the near future.
12. Ski on Utah snow. Whoa-oh. We're halfway there. (I can't help it, I'm from New Jersey, guys. It's a sickness). Cross country skiing counts as half-completion. It was a lot of fun, though, and I'm pretty excited to try real skiing. This just hasn't been a good winter for snow here, though. This goal may have to wait until much later in 2012, provided that next winter is actually snowy enough.
21. Start using more natural cleaning/hygiene/beauty products. Okay, natural products are expensive. It is worth it not to get a chemical headache after cleaning, though. I recently bought non-toxic naturally-derived toilet bowl cleaner. It seems to work just as well as the Lysol I was using, but it has no odor and doesn't burn my eyes when I dispense it. Great success.
Then, I ran out of Aveeno SPF-15 Simply Radiant face lotion (which really isn't that objectionable compared to some other brands, but still) so I made the switch to Avalon Organics SPF-15 face lotion. So far, so good. I always get really nervous when I switch skincare products because I have super sensitive skin (I had such horrible acne as a teenager that someone once told me it looked like a rat chewed on the side of my face. Thanks, nice person, for so harshly criticizing my physical scars that I am now also emotionally/mentally scarred) but this has been fine.
I'd really like to switch my toothpaste and mouthwash to natural versions. I hate that most toothpastes and mouthwashes have artificial colors in them, and I think it's probably worth it not to be cleaning my mouth with gross chemicals. Along those same lines, laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent are pretty high priorities, too.
To make myself feel better about the meager changes I've made since setting this goal, let's focus instead on the natural products I was already using:
Tom's deodorant (only in the winter, though...I haven't found a natural product that can combat my summertime stank yet - any advice out there?)
Yes to Carrots nighttime face cream
Bare Minerals foundation and blush
'Earth Friendly Products' Dish soap
Method or 7th Generation cleaning/disinfecting wipes
Method tub and sink cleaner
7th Generation disinfecting spray
Vinegar and water solution for mirror and glass cleaning
...Aaaand then I found five dollars. Anyone else making any progress with goals/resolutions?
1. No hangovers. I hope you can still hear me over the thunderous applause as my legions of supporters put their hands together to celebrate my success thus far. Not one iota of hangover. Not even the teensiest headache from red wine overindulgence. I did, however, feel like I was going to die when I ate a big cookie and drank some hot chocolate (think worst skull splitting pain one can experience without giving birth to an alien baby through one's forehead). So consider me duly chastised for consuming too much of something, at any rate.
2. Cook new recipes. Also a big time victory so far. There are so many great places on The Internets to find exciting, healthy recipes! Some of my favorites are Whole Living, the blog My New Roots, and Martha Rose Shulman's 'Recipes for Health' for the New York Times. Pinning these recipes to my 'Noms' board on Pinterest hasn't hurt this newfound ambition, either. When I joined Pinterest I was determined not to let my boards languish in the purgatory of 'ideas for
I think I've managed to add some keepers to my cooking repertoire. It's been good to liven up the rotation, and it makes me feel creative instead of feeling as though coming home and getting right into the kitchen is some kind of drudgery. My absolute favorite new thing I tried was this outrageous recipe for chocolate cookies...made with black beans and cayenne pepper! So, so so good and with very little sugar and loads of fiber so I can actually eat them without feeling like someone drove railroad spikes through my temples. I think, with the exception of Christmas, I have become so used to eating very little sugar, outside of natural sugars found in fruits and orange juice, that I find myself having really strong reactions to processed sugar. This is a good thing, really, but sometimes a lady just wants to eat a cookie, okay?
Other winners include this unusual recipe for savory bread pudding with kale and mushrooms from NYT. Try it. You and your mouth will not regret it. I added a chopped onion, because it's not dinner in our house without an onion in the mix. Even Andy liked it, so much so that he took the leftovers for lunch today. If you are at all familiar with his aversion to eating the same thing two days in a row, this was kind of a big deal for me.
 |
| Not the most photogenic meal, but I assure you it tastes like a hug. For your mouth. |
Last week I made this frittata with ricotta, spinach, and tomato (and onions, obvi). That was decent, if a little bland, but nothing some Tapatio hot sauce couldn't fix.
On Sunday, I whipped up this Mediterranean fish chowder that I thought was bangin'. Andy's verdict was 'meh'. Too bad, son, Tuesday night is leftovers night so I can get to yoga by 7:30!
Later this week, I'll be making a spicy chickpea stew and a quinoa-garbanzo-spinach-feta salad. I'm glad that even though I will be essentially eating chickpeas for the next four nights (factoring in leftovers from each recipe), I can switch it up and call them garbanzos just for S's and G's.
I also made a really sweet quiche so I could finally use the pie server I got for Christmas. That was delicious, as always, and I made it slightly less unhealthy than it would otherwise be by swapping out half the flour for whole wheat flour in the crust, and using less cheese. Then there was the Jewish lentil soup that I thought was awesome but Andy couldn't get past its resemblance to baby poop.
 |
| Full disclosure: I tried this recipe mainly because it was Jewish, which of course meant it tasted like thousands of years of wisdom, liberally seasoned with guilt and a dash of schlepping. But sweet fancy Moses was it delicious. |
Ooh, and I finally made sweet potato fries that weren't totally soggy! And I'm sure I made some other stuff that very likely involved beans, onions, garlic, quinoa, or all three. Point is, there has been some inspired cooking going on (along with some very uninspired phoning-it-in dinners as well, but hey, pobody's nerfect). [Don't laugh at that. I'm already embarrassed for quoting a joke from The Office that sounds more like it should have come from the mouth of Ned Flanders.]
3. Exercise more consistently. Unfortunately, this area has not seen the spectacular progress of my first two goals, but we're getting there. Last week, I walked to work and back every single day. That's about an hour of walking each day, and 18 total miles! So that's pretty cool. I also went to yoga on Tuesday night, pilates on Saturday morning, and did a workout with free weights on Sunday. The Sunday before last, we went cross country skiing for about an hour and a half. Aside from last week, which was really a banner week, exercise-wise, I have been walking to and from work often and making it to yoga and pilates on the regular.
8. Get a new kitty. No HIV or full-blown AIDS. She was a keeper. A sweet, cuddly, scratchy, bitey, little gremlin, but we kept her. She and Ajax were getting along swimmingly, even grooming each other (which was even more adorable than it sounds) but then Hadley was spayed and things changed. I don't know if it was the hospital smell when she came back, or some hormone changes, or what, but Ajax really wants nothing to do with her. He hisses at her and tries to avoid her, but she's still all "Let's play! And by play I mean let me pounce on you and bite you and steal your food!"
 |
| Synchronized grooming |
10. Blog more. Hello. Sporadically is more often than never, so let's chalk this one up to a little victory.
11. Paint the master bedroom and office. I painted the master bedroom a few weeks ago, and it makes a huge difference. It's much more 'bedroom' and much less 'cell'. We're just waiting for closet doors and lamps for the night stands.
The past two weekends, instead of painting the office, I tackled the 'man cave', which is the giant room with the fireplace in our finished basement. It's pretty sweet, even though all we have down there right now is a couch and a TV. Eventually, Andy wants to build a bar across from the fireplace. Ironically, now that I've painted it, that's probably the last time I'll ever be allowed in there. A 'no girls allowed' sign will probably be making an appearance in the near future.
 |
| If only it could stay this clean forever. Two cats and an Andy doth not a clean house make. Or something. |
12. Ski on Utah snow. Whoa-oh. We're halfway there. (I can't help it, I'm from New Jersey, guys. It's a sickness). Cross country skiing counts as half-completion. It was a lot of fun, though, and I'm pretty excited to try real skiing. This just hasn't been a good winter for snow here, though. This goal may have to wait until much later in 2012, provided that next winter is actually snowy enough.
 |
| Sink Hollow Trail |
21. Start using more natural cleaning/hygiene/beauty products. Okay, natural products are expensive. It is worth it not to get a chemical headache after cleaning, though. I recently bought non-toxic naturally-derived toilet bowl cleaner. It seems to work just as well as the Lysol I was using, but it has no odor and doesn't burn my eyes when I dispense it. Great success.
Then, I ran out of Aveeno SPF-15 Simply Radiant face lotion (which really isn't that objectionable compared to some other brands, but still) so I made the switch to Avalon Organics SPF-15 face lotion. So far, so good. I always get really nervous when I switch skincare products because I have super sensitive skin (I had such horrible acne as a teenager that someone once told me it looked like a rat chewed on the side of my face. Thanks, nice person, for so harshly criticizing my physical scars that I am now also emotionally/mentally scarred) but this has been fine.
I'd really like to switch my toothpaste and mouthwash to natural versions. I hate that most toothpastes and mouthwashes have artificial colors in them, and I think it's probably worth it not to be cleaning my mouth with gross chemicals. Along those same lines, laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent are pretty high priorities, too.
To make myself feel better about the meager changes I've made since setting this goal, let's focus instead on the natural products I was already using:
Tom's deodorant (only in the winter, though...I haven't found a natural product that can combat my summertime stank yet - any advice out there?)
Yes to Carrots nighttime face cream
Bare Minerals foundation and blush
'Earth Friendly Products' Dish soap
Method or 7th Generation cleaning/disinfecting wipes
Method tub and sink cleaner
7th Generation disinfecting spray
Vinegar and water solution for mirror and glass cleaning
...Aaaand then I found five dollars. Anyone else making any progress with goals/resolutions?
Monday, February 6, 2012
Ode to Oats
In which this blog lives up to its name, for once. Because, as you will see, I have some very strong feelings about what I eat for breakfast:
Hi my name is Katie and I love oatmeal. I love it so much. I can't live without it. Some might call it an addiction. An obsession. I just call it friends with benefits. I single-handedly keep the oat industry afloat and the oats, in turn, support a fiber-rich diet that keeps my heart and digestive system happy. Everybody wins.
I eschew all other breakfast foods in favor of oats. Cereal? Meh. Pancakes? That's cute. French toast? No thanks. Omelet? I'd rather not. Oats, people. It's gotta be oats. I order oatmeal at diners. I bring oatmeal camping. I pack it in my suitcase so I can microwave it in a hotel. Oh. My. God. I can't live without oats. If it were socially acceptable to strap a feedbag to my face, and fill it with oatmeal, I don't even know...I wouldn't not do it, that's all I'm saying.
[If you don't get the bastardized Blue Velvet reference above, we can't be friends anymore until you watch the movie. If you at least watch this clip, we can talk.]
This oat mania is out of control. I cannot be satisfied by merely one kind of oats. I am in a polyamorous relationship with all forms of oats, but I do have my favorites. Most of the time, I divide my affections more or less equally between old fashioned oats and steel cut oats. It keeps the spark alive (not that we need any help, thankyouverymuch). You know what else spices things up? Literally? Spices. You seriously have not lived until you've liberally dusted your oatmeal with cinnamon and ginger. Mouth heaven.
Because it's February and you all deserve to feel as much love as I feel right now, I'm going to share some of my favorite oatmeal concoctions. Maybe you'll be inspired to find your soulmate in a steaming hot bowl of creamy love porridge, too. Or, you know, you could be less weird and just eat some oatmeal sometimes because it tastes good and is good for you. Also, it's so cheap! Who doesn't want to get on board with that?!
So I'll quit my BS'ing and just show you some kinda blurry Instagram pictures of my favorite ways to eat oats. Let me just preface by saying that regardless of the type of oats or the kind of fruit you add, no bowl of oatmeal would be complete (in my world, anyway) without walnuts, raisins and/or dried cranberries, cinnamon, ginger, and almond milk. You can use regular milk, too, but I'm on an almond milk kick right now and I'm pretty happy about it.
To round out your breakfast, you obviously also will need a strong, hot cup of coffee (also with almond milk or your milk-type beverage of choice if you're into that sort of thing), orange juice, a multi-vitamin, and half a grapefruit. If you're OCD like me, you may come to realize that you HAVE to have this for breakfast or you will go through your day feeling like something is terribly amiss. You will cycle through the list of things you could possibly have forgotten that morning, like underwear, or deodorant, or brushing your teeth. But your completely irrational concerns will all boil down to breakfast. It's the only thing that really matters, and, let's be honest, some days (most days...okay, every day) it's the most enticing reason to get out of bed.
Not to climb back up onto my oatmeal soap box again, or anything, but I feel like oats get a bad rap as being bland and punishing, or taking too long to cook. Not true! All they need is a little love. Old fashioned oats cook in the microwave in less than 3 minutes, even with the extra few seconds of cooking time you need when you add frozen fruit (I keep bags of frozen berries and other fruit in the freezer at all times). Just don't buy the quick-cooking oats or those awful packets of pre-flavored, heavily sugared oats. Unless you like eating wallpaper paste or (wallpaper paste that tastes like cavities and hypertension).
And don't add sugar to your oats! That's what the raisins and fruit are for! Natural sweetness! Oats are good for you, processed table sugar is not. Adding sugar to your oatmeal would be like washing your hands and then drying them on a pair of dirty underwear - gross, wrong, unnecessary, and defeating of the original purpose. No? Weird extreme metaphor? Sorry. I have a lot of feelings.
The breakfast in the above picture actually contains cold, leftover steel cut oats. On Sundays, I like to make a big pot and refrigerate the leftovers. Usually I dish some out into a bowl and nuke it, but lately I've been in the mood to eat it cold, which is just as good! Anyone who complains about the time commitment that oats require should try this, since the preparation time goes down to about 15 seconds if you want to eat it cold.
Nothing like eating a pile of cold and/or frozen things on a frosty winter morning. I planned to microwave these strawberries for a few seconds before I put the oats in my bowl, but this was pre-coffee so I forgot about 2 seconds after I told myself I was going to do that. Instead, I ate the whole thing cold, and it was delicious. Almost like ice cream. Oh god. Is it morning yet?
If you're wondering what to do with your last two brown, slightly mushy bananas, and you're too lazy to make banana bread (and you are too lazy), here you go.
This. This is the closest I will ever get to heaven. It's like eating pie that is actually good for you. That's all I will say, and I'll leave you with this:
Hi my name is Katie and I love oatmeal. I love it so much. I can't live without it. Some might call it an addiction. An obsession. I just call it friends with benefits. I single-handedly keep the oat industry afloat and the oats, in turn, support a fiber-rich diet that keeps my heart and digestive system happy. Everybody wins.
I eschew all other breakfast foods in favor of oats. Cereal? Meh. Pancakes? That's cute. French toast? No thanks. Omelet? I'd rather not. Oats, people. It's gotta be oats. I order oatmeal at diners. I bring oatmeal camping. I pack it in my suitcase so I can microwave it in a hotel. Oh. My. God. I can't live without oats. If it were socially acceptable to strap a feedbag to my face, and fill it with oatmeal, I don't even know...I wouldn't not do it, that's all I'm saying.
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| "Cheerios? F that S! STEEL CUT OATMEAL!" (source) |
This oat mania is out of control. I cannot be satisfied by merely one kind of oats. I am in a polyamorous relationship with all forms of oats, but I do have my favorites. Most of the time, I divide my affections more or less equally between old fashioned oats and steel cut oats. It keeps the spark alive (not that we need any help, thankyouverymuch). You know what else spices things up? Literally? Spices. You seriously have not lived until you've liberally dusted your oatmeal with cinnamon and ginger. Mouth heaven.
Because it's February and you all deserve to feel as much love as I feel right now, I'm going to share some of my favorite oatmeal concoctions. Maybe you'll be inspired to find your soulmate in a steaming hot bowl of creamy love porridge, too. Or, you know, you could be less weird and just eat some oatmeal sometimes because it tastes good and is good for you. Also, it's so cheap! Who doesn't want to get on board with that?!
So I'll quit my BS'ing and just show you some kinda blurry Instagram pictures of my favorite ways to eat oats. Let me just preface by saying that regardless of the type of oats or the kind of fruit you add, no bowl of oatmeal would be complete (in my world, anyway) without walnuts, raisins and/or dried cranberries, cinnamon, ginger, and almond milk. You can use regular milk, too, but I'm on an almond milk kick right now and I'm pretty happy about it.
To round out your breakfast, you obviously also will need a strong, hot cup of coffee (also with almond milk or your milk-type beverage of choice if you're into that sort of thing), orange juice, a multi-vitamin, and half a grapefruit. If you're OCD like me, you may come to realize that you HAVE to have this for breakfast or you will go through your day feeling like something is terribly amiss. You will cycle through the list of things you could possibly have forgotten that morning, like underwear, or deodorant, or brushing your teeth. But your completely irrational concerns will all boil down to breakfast. It's the only thing that really matters, and, let's be honest, some days (most days...okay, every day) it's the most enticing reason to get out of bed.
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| Don't be jealous of anything you see in this picture. I know it's hard not to wish you were eating this, the ideal breakfast, and drinking your coffee from this fantastic American Gothic mug. (thanks Beth, if you ever read this!) |
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| A few very important ingredients: Steel cut oats, cinnamon, ginger, dried cranberries, raisins, and walnuts. Don't judge my giant cinnamon. I use a lot. I have a problem. |
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| Old fashioned oats with walnuts, raisins, and peaches! |
And don't add sugar to your oats! That's what the raisins and fruit are for! Natural sweetness! Oats are good for you, processed table sugar is not. Adding sugar to your oatmeal would be like washing your hands and then drying them on a pair of dirty underwear - gross, wrong, unnecessary, and defeating of the original purpose. No? Weird extreme metaphor? Sorry. I have a lot of feelings.
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| The classic: Oatmeal with blueberries, raisins, and walnuts. |
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| Frozen strawberries and cold, leftover steel cut oats. |
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| Old fashioned oats with banana slices, raisins, and walnuts. |
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| Saving the best for last: Freshly cooked steel cut oats with diced apples, walnuts, and raisins |
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| EAT |
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Please Won't You Be My Neighbor?
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. That's a lie. It's gray and ugly, and worst of all, raining. I am told repeatedly that this is not a typical Utah winter, and I am assured that normal winters are much colder, much grayer, but filled with piles of fluffy, powdery snow. That sounds horrible and wonderful at the same time, like drinking a fine wine while someone takes a lead pipe to your kneecaps.
Honestly, I don't remember the last time I experienced a typical winter anywhere. Last year in Idaho, we started off the winter (or mid-late fall to most people) with monstrous amounts of heavy, wet snow that, had my jobs and the grocery store been outside of walking distance, would have paralyzed me and my economy car completely. The previous winter in New Jersey brought more snow than I can remember. More snow than anyone alive can remember. For realsies. Snowiest winter on record. After the sky finished it's bulimic snow-purge onto the Eastern seaboard, we had about a four foot high pile of snow in my mom's front yard, between drifting and snow shoveled from the sidewalk.
Is there even such a thing as a typical season? Do we ever actually experience weather patterns that make us think, 'Hot damn, this is truly the epitome of spring in this geographic region'? Or do we always find some flaw in the weather or deviation from our ideals or expectations that prompts us to assure ourselves 'This is highly unusual...surely next summer will be back to normal'? Or is the whole planet just going completely cray-cray, as both Al Gore and the Mayans have so wisely prophesied?
But I digress. I didn't intend to go on a tirade about the most banal small talk topic of all time. My intended topic, folks, is one Mr. Fred McFeely Rogers.
I am him. He is me. We are one.
Aside from our mutual, undying love of cardigans, we share a very important trait. You see, I have developed a curious habit of late. I change my shoes when I enter the building. I am now the person who walks to work in one pair of shoes, and changes into another when I get there. You are probably thinking, 'Hey, that's not so weird, a lot of women walk to work in sneakers and put on heels when they arrive.' But that's not it.
The last three times I wore high heels (because those are the only times I can remember between high school proms and now) I was also preposterously drunk and wearing a dry-clean-only silk dress. I don't do either of those two things at work, so why would I wear heels, either? I'm not fancy, or short, or a masochist. (Interestingly, Mr. Rogers was none of those things, either, as long as you believe that devoting over 30 years of your life to filming a wholesome children's show with spooky hand puppets and a "mailman" who maybe should have been on a sex offender registry wasn't painful. Coincidence?)
So, why do I change my shoes when I get to work? (The real question should be, why don't I change my clothes when I get to work, because let me be frank and admit that by the time I get there I am sweating like Rick Santorum at a gay pride parade because I am never not running late and therefore always power walking like an a-hole.) I change my shoes because I am the proud but smotheringly overprotective mother of these babies:
They're so pretty. I could never taint them by trudging through snow, slush, puddles, or dog poo (seriously, people of Utah, why do you let your dogs crap on the sidewalk?). I can't bear to damage them, so I wear them only on dry surfaces. Every morning, I carefully pack them in my backpack with my lunch (don't worry, Mom, the food is in a separate compartment) and lace up my trusty 8 year old Doc Martins so I can speed-toddle down the street over the solid ice that forms on the sidewalks after anti-social homeowners don't shovel the snow in front of their houses and then people inevitably walk on it and pack it down. Yes I have fallen. No I'm not injured. Yes I was annoyed. Nobody saw (I hope).
I love a good pair of Docs. Don't get me wrong. But they don't really go with a lot of my clothes, and they kind of make me feel like Frankenstein. But they are officially the only pair of shoes I own with any traction (snow boots might be a solid investment, but I like to deprive myself of functional items just for S's and G's). And they are so comfortable. Thus, I enter work looking from the knees down as if the 90s just coughed up a hairball. Daria called, she wants her footwear back. What? But then I scurry into my cubicle and slip into these beauties and all is right with the world. If loving my boots this much is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Honestly, I don't remember the last time I experienced a typical winter anywhere. Last year in Idaho, we started off the winter (or mid-late fall to most people) with monstrous amounts of heavy, wet snow that, had my jobs and the grocery store been outside of walking distance, would have paralyzed me and my economy car completely. The previous winter in New Jersey brought more snow than I can remember. More snow than anyone alive can remember. For realsies. Snowiest winter on record. After the sky finished it's bulimic snow-purge onto the Eastern seaboard, we had about a four foot high pile of snow in my mom's front yard, between drifting and snow shoveled from the sidewalk.
Is there even such a thing as a typical season? Do we ever actually experience weather patterns that make us think, 'Hot damn, this is truly the epitome of spring in this geographic region'? Or do we always find some flaw in the weather or deviation from our ideals or expectations that prompts us to assure ourselves 'This is highly unusual...surely next summer will be back to normal'? Or is the whole planet just going completely cray-cray, as both Al Gore and the Mayans have so wisely prophesied?
But I digress. I didn't intend to go on a tirade about the most banal small talk topic of all time. My intended topic, folks, is one Mr. Fred McFeely Rogers.
 |
| from Wikipedia |
I am him. He is me. We are one.
Aside from our mutual, undying love of cardigans, we share a very important trait. You see, I have developed a curious habit of late. I change my shoes when I enter the building. I am now the person who walks to work in one pair of shoes, and changes into another when I get there. You are probably thinking, 'Hey, that's not so weird, a lot of women walk to work in sneakers and put on heels when they arrive.' But that's not it.
The last three times I wore high heels (because those are the only times I can remember between high school proms and now) I was also preposterously drunk and wearing a dry-clean-only silk dress. I don't do either of those two things at work, so why would I wear heels, either? I'm not fancy, or short, or a masochist. (Interestingly, Mr. Rogers was none of those things, either, as long as you believe that devoting over 30 years of your life to filming a wholesome children's show with spooky hand puppets and a "mailman" who maybe should have been on a sex offender registry wasn't painful. Coincidence?)
So, why do I change my shoes when I get to work? (The real question should be, why don't I change my clothes when I get to work, because let me be frank and admit that by the time I get there I am sweating like Rick Santorum at a gay pride parade because I am never not running late and therefore always power walking like an a-hole.) I change my shoes because I am the proud but smotheringly overprotective mother of these babies:
 |
| Steve Madden |
They're so pretty. I could never taint them by trudging through snow, slush, puddles, or dog poo (seriously, people of Utah, why do you let your dogs crap on the sidewalk?). I can't bear to damage them, so I wear them only on dry surfaces. Every morning, I carefully pack them in my backpack with my lunch (don't worry, Mom, the food is in a separate compartment) and lace up my trusty 8 year old Doc Martins so I can speed-toddle down the street over the solid ice that forms on the sidewalks after anti-social homeowners don't shovel the snow in front of their houses and then people inevitably walk on it and pack it down. Yes I have fallen. No I'm not injured. Yes I was annoyed. Nobody saw (I hope).
I love a good pair of Docs. Don't get me wrong. But they don't really go with a lot of my clothes, and they kind of make me feel like Frankenstein. But they are officially the only pair of shoes I own with any traction (snow boots might be a solid investment, but I like to deprive myself of functional items just for S's and G's). And they are so comfortable. Thus, I enter work looking from the knees down as if the 90s just coughed up a hairball. Daria called, she wants her footwear back. What? But then I scurry into my cubicle and slip into these beauties and all is right with the world. If loving my boots this much is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Plus or Minus
We had a wee bit of a pregnancy scare last night. But don't worry. Everyone's fine, everyone's barren. The stray cat I found at the liquor store is not pregnant. Probably. It's kind of hard to tell. Speaking as someone with little to no experience with pregnancy of the feline or human variety (ok no experience whatsoever) I can't really tell if her behavior and outward symptoms mean that she's pregnant or just in heat.
I'm leaning towards 'in heat' because 1) I really do not want a pile of slimy newborn kittens showing up on my floor one day and 2) she's been slithering around all evening making this 'murrowww' sound that seems to be cat-speak for 'DO ME'. Either way, GROSS. I will spare you (most of) the gory details, but I want to spread a little of this misery around by making it quite clear that engorged cat nipples are disgusting on so many levels (including but in no way limited to the sheer quantity of nipples, oh my god) that I can't even begin to describe how uncomfortable it makes me to pet Hadley right now. This little hussy cannot get spayed quickly enough.
Hadley was supposed to get her lady parts excised last Friday (on the ominous 13th), but she had a chest cold thing going on so we pushed back the surgery. Maybe that was a bad idea. Is there an abortion cut-off for cats? I tried looking up the legal precedent set in the landmark Meow vs. Wade case, but my iPhone literally punched me in the face for making such a weak pun. And I mean literally in the most literal actual sense, not the 'I really mean "figuratively" but I am literally too dumb to understand the meaning of the word "literally"' sense. It's amazing how sassy artificial intelligence is getting these days. And my (antiquated, Luddite) iPhone doesn't even have Siri!
So clearly, I should have made 'writing about cats incessantly' one of my New Year's goals. I would be spanking that so hard right now.
In other non-cat related news:
We are going to Sundance this weekend! I demand a Ryan Gosling sighting, or I want my money back. I have no idea if he's even going (because, you know, we talk, but the topic never seems to come up) but seriously? How could you not love him in Lars and the Real Girl or Half Nelson? And how could you not adore internet meme Ryan Gosling? In my humble and totally unbiased opinion, Librarian Hey Girl is by far the best one.
This is my favorite iteration. It's naughty.
And in case you are wondering and couldn't fill in the blanks sufficiently on your own, allow me to translate. That is the Library of Congress call number for the book, The F Word, by Jesse Sheidlower. See for yourself.
While we're tossing around a celebrity encounter wish-list, I also wouldn't mind a Rashida Jones sighting. She's in a Sundance film with Andy Samberg (who I ALSO wouldn't be disappointed to espy from afar!) called Celeste and Jesse Forever. It looks really cute - we aren't seeing it at Sundance but I'm going to keep an eye out for it when it comes to theaters. But I digress. I've been toying with the probably terrible idea of cutting my hair, and Rashida has been frequenting my radar screen. And by radar screen, I mean she's carved herself a nice little niche on my Pinterest, and I have a tiny little girl crush on her. And her hair.
Is that totally stupid to hope that I see certain celebrities (or any recognizably famous person, really)? Yes. Yes it is stupid. But also fun. And it's a behavior that has been ingrained in my personality since the height of Zach Morris mania. True story. Once upon a time in 1993 or thereabouts, I saw a commercial for the Philadelphia Auto Show. There might have been some cars there, or something, but all I cared about, and all I could think about for the next month, was Mark Paul Gosselaar. He was going to be there signing autographs, and obviously he was going to fall in love with the creepy jail-bait 8 year old seeking his autograph and we would live happily, if scandalously, ever after.
Amazingly, my awesome mom took me and my then 6-year-old cousin Michael to the auto show and waited in a forever long line for an autograph. Naturally, I hadZach Mr. Gosselaar sign a giant Saved by the Bell poster that came as a centerfold in some random teen magazine. It was the best day of my life, and the day I retired my even-creepier 'Ernest Goes to Jail' Jim Varney poster (that I used to kiss every night before bed because why?) and replaced it with something slightly more age-appropriate.
I have no doubt that Sundance will be a slightly less pathetic but no less euphoric experience.
I'm leaning towards 'in heat' because 1) I really do not want a pile of slimy newborn kittens showing up on my floor one day and 2) she's been slithering around all evening making this 'murrowww' sound that seems to be cat-speak for 'DO ME'. Either way, GROSS. I will spare you (most of) the gory details, but I want to spread a little of this misery around by making it quite clear that engorged cat nipples are disgusting on so many levels (including but in no way limited to the sheer quantity of nipples, oh my god) that I can't even begin to describe how uncomfortable it makes me to pet Hadley right now. This little hussy cannot get spayed quickly enough.
Hadley was supposed to get her lady parts excised last Friday (on the ominous 13th), but she had a chest cold thing going on so we pushed back the surgery. Maybe that was a bad idea. Is there an abortion cut-off for cats? I tried looking up the legal precedent set in the landmark Meow vs. Wade case, but my iPhone literally punched me in the face for making such a weak pun. And I mean literally in the most literal actual sense, not the 'I really mean "figuratively" but I am literally too dumb to understand the meaning of the word "literally"' sense. It's amazing how sassy artificial intelligence is getting these days. And my (antiquated, Luddite) iPhone doesn't even have Siri!
So clearly, I should have made 'writing about cats incessantly' one of my New Year's goals. I would be spanking that so hard right now.
In other non-cat related news:
We are going to Sundance this weekend! I demand a Ryan Gosling sighting, or I want my money back. I have no idea if he's even going (because, you know, we talk, but the topic never seems to come up) but seriously? How could you not love him in Lars and the Real Girl or Half Nelson? And how could you not adore internet meme Ryan Gosling? In my humble and totally unbiased opinion, Librarian Hey Girl is by far the best one.
This is my favorite iteration. It's naughty.
 |
| Source |
While we're tossing around a celebrity encounter wish-list, I also wouldn't mind a Rashida Jones sighting. She's in a Sundance film with Andy Samberg (who I ALSO wouldn't be disappointed to espy from afar!) called Celeste and Jesse Forever. It looks really cute - we aren't seeing it at Sundance but I'm going to keep an eye out for it when it comes to theaters. But I digress. I've been toying with the probably terrible idea of cutting my hair, and Rashida has been frequenting my radar screen. And by radar screen, I mean she's carved herself a nice little niche on my Pinterest, and I have a tiny little girl crush on her. And her hair.
Is that totally stupid to hope that I see certain celebrities (or any recognizably famous person, really)? Yes. Yes it is stupid. But also fun. And it's a behavior that has been ingrained in my personality since the height of Zach Morris mania. True story. Once upon a time in 1993 or thereabouts, I saw a commercial for the Philadelphia Auto Show. There might have been some cars there, or something, but all I cared about, and all I could think about for the next month, was Mark Paul Gosselaar. He was going to be there signing autographs, and obviously he was going to fall in love with the creepy jail-bait 8 year old seeking his autograph and we would live happily, if scandalously, ever after.
Amazingly, my awesome mom took me and my then 6-year-old cousin Michael to the auto show and waited in a forever long line for an autograph. Naturally, I had
I have no doubt that Sundance will be a slightly less pathetic but no less euphoric experience.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The Blizzard That Wasn't
Yet.
I may be speaking out of turn. The forecast changed so many times throughout the course of today, it's really anyone's guess. We could still get 10 inches tomorrow, supposedly. All I know is that I was robbed of the opportunity to trudge almost two miles home from work in a blizzard and then complain about it bitterly afterwards.
Side note, you know how typing on an iPad is a delicate and not always accurate process? Well, that imprecision is amplified tremendously when two cats are vying for the limited space on your lap. And when one of those cats weighs almost 20 pounds and is crushing your organs, and the other is tiny and cute but likes to swipe at your screen and try to eat your diamond ring because it's shiny and waving around while you type. It's a first world problem, for sure, but life is so hard sometimes, right?
Other side note - small kitty just swiped the screen and somehow typed the letters 'non'. I am positive she was trying to type 'Nyan (and I'm purposely leaving off the closing apostrophe because every time I added it, this terrible iPad auotcorrected it to 'Nyanja' as if that is even any more of a word. What even is that? A poptart cat trained in martial arts? Please enlighten me). Point is, this cat is so smart. Real point is, Andy is away and the human to cat ratio is currently at a shameful level in this house. I feel a little weird about that.
I may be speaking out of turn. The forecast changed so many times throughout the course of today, it's really anyone's guess. We could still get 10 inches tomorrow, supposedly. All I know is that I was robbed of the opportunity to trudge almost two miles home from work in a blizzard and then complain about it bitterly afterwards.
Side note, you know how typing on an iPad is a delicate and not always accurate process? Well, that imprecision is amplified tremendously when two cats are vying for the limited space on your lap. And when one of those cats weighs almost 20 pounds and is crushing your organs, and the other is tiny and cute but likes to swipe at your screen and try to eat your diamond ring because it's shiny and waving around while you type. It's a first world problem, for sure, but life is so hard sometimes, right?
Other side note - small kitty just swiped the screen and somehow typed the letters 'non'. I am positive she was trying to type 'Nyan (and I'm purposely leaving off the closing apostrophe because every time I added it, this terrible iPad auotcorrected it to 'Nyanja' as if that is even any more of a word. What even is that? A poptart cat trained in martial arts? Please enlighten me). Point is, this cat is so smart. Real point is, Andy is away and the human to cat ratio is currently at a shameful level in this house. I feel a little weird about that.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Ho-ga
I am simultaneously awesome and terrible at yoga. The physical part is no sweat, literally or figuratively. Of course, the classes I attend are not advanced, but still. I am so freakishly flexible that sometimes I feel guilty for being so awesome when I know that people in class who are struggling probably see me and wonder why their own bodies can't contort into completely unnatural positions. Which brings me to the terrible part. I am a complete and abject failure when it comes to the spirit of yoga. I am a big old Judgey McJudgerson. Judge Judy. I am a mean girl. At least, my inner-monologue is a very mean girl who would give Regina George a serious run for her money.
Yoga is not about walking in off the street and being the best. It's not a contest, it's not about winning, and there is no perfection in yoga. It just doesn't exist. And it isn't one-dimensional. It's not just about how much your anatomy functions like a Gumby figurine. It doesn't matter if you're a Cirque du Soleil performer with rubber bones and surgically removed ribs. No matter how flexible, how strong, how balanced you are, if your ego worms its way into your poses, you're doing it wrong. And I can't make my brain stop thinking about other people's flaws! Yoga is supposed to be about YOU (me). It's doing the best you can with what you have, and "honoring your body" and feeling "oneness" with others and all that foo-foo. I can get on board with that, really, I can. They are nice ideas. But way harder to do than standing on one foot while holding the opposite big toe and drawing that leg up so my knee touches my face. Way, way harder.
Last night, I went to my first yoga class in a while. I was really looking forward to it, because I last attended two weeks before Christmas. I was hoping this would be a soothing, quiet session, but two minutes into class, as we were sitting cross-legged with our eyes closed 'finding our center', my hopes were dashed.
There is a large group of girls that come to yoga every other week. I gather that they are doing this for some kind of college requirement, as they seem to be about college-age, they travel in a pack, and they range in enthusiasm from moderately interested to apathetic to living in complete dread of every pose. The lineup of this group has changed substantially from last semester to this one, but the pattern is the same. They roll in a few minutes after class has started, and there are too many of them for this to be a silent, unintrusive process. They come in chatting and laughing and take their good old time removing coats, shoes, and socks. Those of us who had the courtesy to arrive on time are forced to break concentration and rearrange our mats to make space for the late-comers. I think it is at this point that I get irritated and start giving my inner-monologue permission to be a complete and total biotch.
To be fair (to myself), I will say that I'm not shallow enough to judge what these girls are wearing. At least, I'm not judging the girls who look sloppy. Because this girl right here isn't winning any fashion awards in her hunter green polyester/fleece blend American Eagle lounge pants circa 1999. Unless people get fashion awards for wearing part of their high school gym uniform 8-12 years later. I know I look like a scrub...after hearing the phrase "it's not a fashion show" ad nauseum throughout my entire childhood and adolescence whenever I agonized over what to wear, I can finally accept that the gym is definitely one place where I should not care about my appearance. That being said, I will relentlessly judge anyone who looks too dressed up for yoga...like the 65+ year old woman who comes on Saturday mornings, late, fully coiffed and made up, with some kind of leopard print silky shirt and lots of jangling gold bangle bracelets.
But I digress. So these hussies tramp into the studio like they own the joint and, to the instructor's credit, she doesn't miss a beat and she doesn't backpedal to accommodate these egregious violators of the social contract. Eventually they settle into place and start halfheartedly taking poses. Soon we find ourselves hanging out in a downward dog pose after we cycle through our first 'vinyasa'. You may or may not have ever found yourself in this position before, but after viewing the illustration below, you will probably agree that it does not look difficult.
It is not difficult. It is a basic warm-up stretch. So you will join me in my surprise and sadness when I report that I saw, from my upside-down vantage point, two girls behind me panting and sweating. They had dropped down to their knees and were guzzling water and toweling the dripping sweat from their faces. In the first 10 minutes of class. Does. Not. Compute.
If I were a better person, I would channel that observation into thinking positive and encouraging thoughts for these girls, and feeling grateful for my own body's abilities. But I'm not. I'm a terrible person! Instead of doing that, even after the thought crosses my mind, I twist it into feeling superior! It's horrendous, and I'm pretty sure if anyone else in class could hear my thoughts, I would get jumped and summarily smothered with a yoga mat. And they would probably use the sweatiest one, just for good measure. Like, ew.
But fortunately, my terrible thoughts are my own, so we soldier on. The girls who aren't writhing in pain or hyperventilating continue to apathetically follow the instructor. There is usually a lot of self-conscious giggling from these girls when they inevitablyreally suck can't do something or look feel ridiculous. That's super annoying, because I've been programmed to assume that anyone giggling behind me is giggling at me, and then before I can reason with myself I'm all, "Yea, I'll give them something to laugh about" and I start pushing harder into whatever pose we are doing. This just serves to push me farther to extremes, physically getting more out of yoga but mentally backsliding.
It's a terrible inverse proportion of success, and the more I think about it, the more I think I should just go to a more challenging class that will put my ego back in check. One where I will consider it a victory simply if I make it through class without farting. You know what? Let's be honest, that's never not a victory.
 |
| OMG, you're not seriously already sweating during the first downward dog. Because that's gross. |
Last night, I went to my first yoga class in a while. I was really looking forward to it, because I last attended two weeks before Christmas. I was hoping this would be a soothing, quiet session, but two minutes into class, as we were sitting cross-legged with our eyes closed 'finding our center', my hopes were dashed.
There is a large group of girls that come to yoga every other week. I gather that they are doing this for some kind of college requirement, as they seem to be about college-age, they travel in a pack, and they range in enthusiasm from moderately interested to apathetic to living in complete dread of every pose. The lineup of this group has changed substantially from last semester to this one, but the pattern is the same. They roll in a few minutes after class has started, and there are too many of them for this to be a silent, unintrusive process. They come in chatting and laughing and take their good old time removing coats, shoes, and socks. Those of us who had the courtesy to arrive on time are forced to break concentration and rearrange our mats to make space for the late-comers. I think it is at this point that I get irritated and start giving my inner-monologue permission to be a complete and total biotch.
To be fair (to myself), I will say that I'm not shallow enough to judge what these girls are wearing. At least, I'm not judging the girls who look sloppy. Because this girl right here isn't winning any fashion awards in her hunter green polyester/fleece blend American Eagle lounge pants circa 1999. Unless people get fashion awards for wearing part of their high school gym uniform 8-12 years later. I know I look like a scrub...after hearing the phrase "it's not a fashion show" ad nauseum throughout my entire childhood and adolescence whenever I agonized over what to wear, I can finally accept that the gym is definitely one place where I should not care about my appearance. That being said, I will relentlessly judge anyone who looks too dressed up for yoga...like the 65+ year old woman who comes on Saturday mornings, late, fully coiffed and made up, with some kind of leopard print silky shirt and lots of jangling gold bangle bracelets.
But I digress. So these hussies tramp into the studio like they own the joint and, to the instructor's credit, she doesn't miss a beat and she doesn't backpedal to accommodate these egregious violators of the social contract. Eventually they settle into place and start halfheartedly taking poses. Soon we find ourselves hanging out in a downward dog pose after we cycle through our first 'vinyasa'. You may or may not have ever found yourself in this position before, but after viewing the illustration below, you will probably agree that it does not look difficult.
| Source |
It is not difficult. It is a basic warm-up stretch. So you will join me in my surprise and sadness when I report that I saw, from my upside-down vantage point, two girls behind me panting and sweating. They had dropped down to their knees and were guzzling water and toweling the dripping sweat from their faces. In the first 10 minutes of class. Does. Not. Compute.
If I were a better person, I would channel that observation into thinking positive and encouraging thoughts for these girls, and feeling grateful for my own body's abilities. But I'm not. I'm a terrible person! Instead of doing that, even after the thought crosses my mind, I twist it into feeling superior! It's horrendous, and I'm pretty sure if anyone else in class could hear my thoughts, I would get jumped and summarily smothered with a yoga mat. And they would probably use the sweatiest one, just for good measure. Like, ew.
But fortunately, my terrible thoughts are my own, so we soldier on. The girls who aren't writhing in pain or hyperventilating continue to apathetically follow the instructor. There is usually a lot of self-conscious giggling from these girls when they inevitably
It's a terrible inverse proportion of success, and the more I think about it, the more I think I should just go to a more challenging class that will put my ego back in check. One where I will consider it a victory simply if I make it through class without farting. You know what? Let's be honest, that's never not a victory.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Tabby cat doesn't give a $^%+
You know what needs to happen? Someone needs to film our new kitty, and have a fabulously flamboyant-sounding man narrate her behavior. She is the honey badger of the feline world. She seriously doesn't give an s-word.
Let me back up and tell the whole story. Long ago and far away, in a dark and frozen land, this cat chose me.
It all started the Monday before Christmas. It was a bitterly cold, malodorous night in Utah. An inversion of polluted, stagnant air had settled over our little valley, and the smell that filled the air was not chestnuts roasting on an open fire, or peppermint, or gingerbread or anything remotely festive. In fact, the smell was not unlike the odor of a dumpster full of hamburgers left open during a downpour.
I set out for the state liquor store to obtain a bottle of wine for our friend who would be taking care of our cat, Ajax, the gentle giant, while we visited New Jersey for the holidays. When I left the store, brown paper bag of sin-juice in hand, a little tiny kitty was loitering just outside the door. I'm a sucker for baby animals, and become totally oblivious to possible diseases and perils when an opportunity to pet one arises. So of course, I crouched down and put out my hand, and the kitty bolted over to me.
I pet it for a minute and then I realized two things:
OMG, it's way too cold for something this tiny to be outside exposed to the elements
and,
OMG, dirty stray animal! Fleas! Rabies!
So I stood up to call Andy to see what he thought I should do about this cat. It was super cute, and I wanted to keep it, but there were multiple reasons why that would have been a bad idea, including the illegality of harboring a stray, and the logistics of getting a new pet right before going on a long trip. I was wearing a long knitted scarf with fringe, and the kitty starting batting at the low-hanging yarn. CUTE OVERLOAD. Then, it jumped up on the ledge of a raised flower bed and stared at me intently. Before I knew what was going on, I was standing in the liquor store parking lot with a phone in one hand, paper-bagged booze in the other, and a cat on my head. If that doesn't scream classiness and mental stability to you, we might need to have a talk.
Andy talked me down from the ledge of cuteness-induced poor judgment, and I called the local Humane Society. They were closed for the night, so I had no choice but to call Animal Control. It felt vaguely wrong, since I was essentially calling the cops on a baby animal. I also felt a twinge of shame telling the dispatcher that I found the kitty outside the liquor store, because the odds that I was talking to a Mormon were overwhelming (and I know, I know, super nice people, they probably weren't judging me, and all that jazz...).
The dispatcher told me an officer would call to arrange a pickup, so I scooped up the kitty, plopped it on my backseat, and drove home to wait for the officer's call. Little baby kitty obviously had to explore this moving vessel, so it wandered all around the car, which could have been the first warm, soft place it had ever experienced. After about two blocks, it settled down in my lap where it curled up and started batting at the keys dangling from the ignition. I had to think about some seriously awful things to block out this second cute overload, or I would have driven straight off the road . Must. Fight. Cuteness. With thoughts of nuclear holocaust. And Comcast customer service.
Thoughts of wiping out civilization and/or having an stroke from severe anger and frustration got me through the ten-minute drive unscathed, but once I was back in my driveway, all bets were off. I sat in the car petting the kitty and hoping the Animal Control guy wouldn't show up. Unfortunately, he did. He told me they'd keep the cat in jail for five days, and if no one claimed it, it would be turned over to the Humane Society to be put up for adoption. Jail! A kitty in jail!
I pushed aside thoughts of taking it some Fancy Feast with a nail file in it, or busting it out myself and becoming the first human-feline crime duo. Once it was gone, I regained some perspective on the situation. Two cats? Did we really need two cats? With two litter boxes? And two shedding coats? When my mom and most of our friends here are highly allergic to cats? I don't want to be a crazy cat person...does having an equal librarian to cat ratio in your household automatically make you a sad stereotype? It might.
I decided I had done my good deed for the year. Turning the cat in was enough, so I went inside, stripped down, and threw every article of clothing in the dryer while I took a hot shower to ward off a possible flea infestation. I would later find out this was a pointless exercise, because it's way too cold here for fleas to thrive on outdoor animals.
The days passed, we flew to New Jersey, Christmas drew closer, and I tried to put this hilarious, adorable encounter behind me. Andy, however, had different plans. He was adamant that we adopt this cat so Ajax could have a friend. I wasn't sold at first, but then I realized this cat could be MY friend, too. Ajax is our cat, but he's not really our cat. He's always been more Andy's cat than mine. He just uses me as a food provider when he's hungry and Andy isn't around. So basically whenever Andy isn't around. Because Ajax is never not hungry.
After a flurry of correspondence with the Humane Society, we found out our cat was there, it was a girl, and she was in alleged "good health". They posted her picture online with the other adoptable cats. All the other cats were decked out for Christmas, some wearing Santa hats or posed in front of festive displays of wrapped gifts. Our cat was photographed through the window of a smudged, cloudy plexiglass box. The other cats had fun names and quirky write-ups about their personalities. This cat was just 'unknown stray cat, age 1 year'. We thought there was no way anyone would adopt her in such a state, which was a relief, because there was no way to put a deposit on her or reserve her in any way while we were still back east. Then they updated her profile with a mind-blowingly adorable picture of her perched on the shoulder of a shelter volunteer, looking alert and curious and fuzzy. They named her Bonnie, because she seemed to be so happy.
That was it. She was going to be gone in five minutes, for sure. But luck prevailed, and she remained in the shelter until the window of opportunity arrived during which we could place a 24-hour hold on her. Once we were fairly certain she would be ours, I immediately set about the task of renaming her. With a real-life awesome human friend named Bonnie, it would have just been too weird to keep the name the shelter gave her. Something booze-themed seemed only natural, given her place of rescue, but I didn't want to be obvious and name her 'Cabernet' or 'Kahlua' or something. So I devised the best possible mash-up: Alcohol and literary references.
After much deliberation, I decided to name her Hadley. She is named after Hemingway's first wife, whom he often called 'little cat'. It's no secret that both Ernest and Hadley were big-time boozers, so it works on so many levels. Or two levels. But so many.
We brought Hadley to her 'forever home', as shelters love to call it, on Monday. The woman at the shelter assured us she was healthy. We asked if she had been tested for feline AIDS or leukemia. "Oh, well, we don't test for that here." Exsqueeze me? How can you be sure she's healthy if she might have AIDS??? Is this little hussy going to infect the perfectly healthy cat we already have? But it was too late; we were in too deep. We took our possibly FIV-ridden new fur-child home and kept her in isolation in a spare room until we could get a vet appointment. It turns out she's clean, but she had some nasty ear mites and a runny nose. So, thanks, Humane Society, for giving us a cat that could have had the FIV, and did have some gnarly business in her ears. I guess 'healthy' merely implies alive and not bleeding or vomiting.
Now that Hadley has been in our house all week, we've had some time to really see her personality shine. This cat is fearless. All she wants to do is play, and she will play with anything that moves. She tries to attack my hair, and she has tried to eat it the way a human baby might. She has jumped on my head several more times since our first encounter. She has also punched me in the face. Seriously. She batted me in the eye. On my eyeball. A cat touched my eyeball. I can't even tell you how disgusting it felt, or how quickly I tore out my contact and flushed out my eye with water. I don't know how, but she hit me so hard that it left a tiny bruise under my eye. A 5.6 pound cat gave me a black eye.
She is also desperate to play with Ajax. She wants nothing more than to be his best friend. He is three times her size, and could destroy her if he had the slightest inclination. But she does. not. care. We haven't officially let them interact yet. However, she escaped her area the other day and bounded right up to him. She was all 'Hai friend, let's be friends, let's be the best of friends, forever, and let's play!' And he was all 'OMG, HISS'. And then he ran away and sulked.
I don't get it. Does he not understand that he is enormous? Does he not realize this is a David and Goliath situation, only nothing important or 'righteous' or mythical is at stake, so, as the Goliath figure, he could probably eat her or sit on her or otherwise decimate this tiny adversary?
I'm so glad this 5 pound tornado clawed her way onto my head and into my heart.
Let me back up and tell the whole story. Long ago and far away, in a dark and frozen land, this cat chose me.
It all started the Monday before Christmas. It was a bitterly cold, malodorous night in Utah. An inversion of polluted, stagnant air had settled over our little valley, and the smell that filled the air was not chestnuts roasting on an open fire, or peppermint, or gingerbread or anything remotely festive. In fact, the smell was not unlike the odor of a dumpster full of hamburgers left open during a downpour.
I set out for the state liquor store to obtain a bottle of wine for our friend who would be taking care of our cat, Ajax, the gentle giant, while we visited New Jersey for the holidays. When I left the store, brown paper bag of sin-juice in hand, a little tiny kitty was loitering just outside the door. I'm a sucker for baby animals, and become totally oblivious to possible diseases and perils when an opportunity to pet one arises. So of course, I crouched down and put out my hand, and the kitty bolted over to me.
I pet it for a minute and then I realized two things:
OMG, it's way too cold for something this tiny to be outside exposed to the elements
and,
OMG, dirty stray animal! Fleas! Rabies!
So I stood up to call Andy to see what he thought I should do about this cat. It was super cute, and I wanted to keep it, but there were multiple reasons why that would have been a bad idea, including the illegality of harboring a stray, and the logistics of getting a new pet right before going on a long trip. I was wearing a long knitted scarf with fringe, and the kitty starting batting at the low-hanging yarn. CUTE OVERLOAD. Then, it jumped up on the ledge of a raised flower bed and stared at me intently. Before I knew what was going on, I was standing in the liquor store parking lot with a phone in one hand, paper-bagged booze in the other, and a cat on my head. If that doesn't scream classiness and mental stability to you, we might need to have a talk.
Andy talked me down from the ledge of cuteness-induced poor judgment, and I called the local Humane Society. They were closed for the night, so I had no choice but to call Animal Control. It felt vaguely wrong, since I was essentially calling the cops on a baby animal. I also felt a twinge of shame telling the dispatcher that I found the kitty outside the liquor store, because the odds that I was talking to a Mormon were overwhelming (and I know, I know, super nice people, they probably weren't judging me, and all that jazz...).
The dispatcher told me an officer would call to arrange a pickup, so I scooped up the kitty, plopped it on my backseat, and drove home to wait for the officer's call. Little baby kitty obviously had to explore this moving vessel, so it wandered all around the car, which could have been the first warm, soft place it had ever experienced. After about two blocks, it settled down in my lap where it curled up and started batting at the keys dangling from the ignition. I had to think about some seriously awful things to block out this second cute overload, or I would have driven straight off the road . Must. Fight. Cuteness. With thoughts of nuclear holocaust. And Comcast customer service.
Thoughts of wiping out civilization and/or having an stroke from severe anger and frustration got me through the ten-minute drive unscathed, but once I was back in my driveway, all bets were off. I sat in the car petting the kitty and hoping the Animal Control guy wouldn't show up. Unfortunately, he did. He told me they'd keep the cat in jail for five days, and if no one claimed it, it would be turned over to the Humane Society to be put up for adoption. Jail! A kitty in jail!
I pushed aside thoughts of taking it some Fancy Feast with a nail file in it, or busting it out myself and becoming the first human-feline crime duo. Once it was gone, I regained some perspective on the situation. Two cats? Did we really need two cats? With two litter boxes? And two shedding coats? When my mom and most of our friends here are highly allergic to cats? I don't want to be a crazy cat person...does having an equal librarian to cat ratio in your household automatically make you a sad stereotype? It might.
I decided I had done my good deed for the year. Turning the cat in was enough, so I went inside, stripped down, and threw every article of clothing in the dryer while I took a hot shower to ward off a possible flea infestation. I would later find out this was a pointless exercise, because it's way too cold here for fleas to thrive on outdoor animals.
The days passed, we flew to New Jersey, Christmas drew closer, and I tried to put this hilarious, adorable encounter behind me. Andy, however, had different plans. He was adamant that we adopt this cat so Ajax could have a friend. I wasn't sold at first, but then I realized this cat could be MY friend, too. Ajax is our cat, but he's not really our cat. He's always been more Andy's cat than mine. He just uses me as a food provider when he's hungry and Andy isn't around. So basically whenever Andy isn't around. Because Ajax is never not hungry.
After a flurry of correspondence with the Humane Society, we found out our cat was there, it was a girl, and she was in alleged "good health". They posted her picture online with the other adoptable cats. All the other cats were decked out for Christmas, some wearing Santa hats or posed in front of festive displays of wrapped gifts. Our cat was photographed through the window of a smudged, cloudy plexiglass box. The other cats had fun names and quirky write-ups about their personalities. This cat was just 'unknown stray cat, age 1 year'. We thought there was no way anyone would adopt her in such a state, which was a relief, because there was no way to put a deposit on her or reserve her in any way while we were still back east. Then they updated her profile with a mind-blowingly adorable picture of her perched on the shoulder of a shelter volunteer, looking alert and curious and fuzzy. They named her Bonnie, because she seemed to be so happy.
That was it. She was going to be gone in five minutes, for sure. But luck prevailed, and she remained in the shelter until the window of opportunity arrived during which we could place a 24-hour hold on her. Once we were fairly certain she would be ours, I immediately set about the task of renaming her. With a real-life awesome human friend named Bonnie, it would have just been too weird to keep the name the shelter gave her. Something booze-themed seemed only natural, given her place of rescue, but I didn't want to be obvious and name her 'Cabernet' or 'Kahlua' or something. So I devised the best possible mash-up: Alcohol and literary references.
After much deliberation, I decided to name her Hadley. She is named after Hemingway's first wife, whom he often called 'little cat'. It's no secret that both Ernest and Hadley were big-time boozers, so it works on so many levels. Or two levels. But so many.
We brought Hadley to her 'forever home', as shelters love to call it, on Monday. The woman at the shelter assured us she was healthy. We asked if she had been tested for feline AIDS or leukemia. "Oh, well, we don't test for that here." Exsqueeze me? How can you be sure she's healthy if she might have AIDS??? Is this little hussy going to infect the perfectly healthy cat we already have? But it was too late; we were in too deep. We took our possibly FIV-ridden new fur-child home and kept her in isolation in a spare room until we could get a vet appointment. It turns out she's clean, but she had some nasty ear mites and a runny nose. So, thanks, Humane Society, for giving us a cat that could have had the FIV, and did have some gnarly business in her ears. I guess 'healthy' merely implies alive and not bleeding or vomiting.
Now that Hadley has been in our house all week, we've had some time to really see her personality shine. This cat is fearless. All she wants to do is play, and she will play with anything that moves. She tries to attack my hair, and she has tried to eat it the way a human baby might. She has jumped on my head several more times since our first encounter. She has also punched me in the face. Seriously. She batted me in the eye. On my eyeball. A cat touched my eyeball. I can't even tell you how disgusting it felt, or how quickly I tore out my contact and flushed out my eye with water. I don't know how, but she hit me so hard that it left a tiny bruise under my eye. A 5.6 pound cat gave me a black eye.
She is also desperate to play with Ajax. She wants nothing more than to be his best friend. He is three times her size, and could destroy her if he had the slightest inclination. But she does. not. care. We haven't officially let them interact yet. However, she escaped her area the other day and bounded right up to him. She was all 'Hai friend, let's be friends, let's be the best of friends, forever, and let's play!' And he was all 'OMG, HISS'. And then he ran away and sulked.
I don't get it. Does he not understand that he is enormous? Does he not realize this is a David and Goliath situation, only nothing important or 'righteous' or mythical is at stake, so, as the Goliath figure, he could probably eat her or sit on her or otherwise decimate this tiny adversary?
As I write this, surly old Ajax is sulking under the bed while Hadley bounces back and forth between me and Andy, batting at our iPad screens, biting Andy's head, and shoving her entire head in a coffee cup that recently contained milk. Earlier this evening, she tried to scale the curtains on the sliding glass porch door.
Monday, January 2, 2012
I Blog, Therefore I Am
Oh, hay. Still alive over here. The second half of 2011 was so very. That's the best way to describe it. Take any adjective and just put 'very' in front of it, and that was our year. Very busy. Very overwhelming. Very fun. We bested our personal moving frequency record and moved twice in four months. Thankfully, the second move was a mere cross-town move, and hopefully it was the move to end all moves. We. Bought. A house.
That's right, no more listening to our neighbors flush the toilet, sing, or get it on. No more smelling their cigarette smoke, no more watching them come and go with large amounts of fast food immediately before and after hearing them get it on. Clearly there's more to home-ownership than avoiding your neighbors (because if anything, home-ownership has brought us into some awkward proximity with some of our new neighbors), but seriously. It's the best. Also, we have not one but three bathrooms. I never want to share a bathroom again for as long as I live.
But now that the whirlwind of new job starting/house hunting/mortgage applying/house buying/moving/unpacking/decorating/wedding attending/Christmas vacationing is behind us, I'm looking forward to settling back into a routine and hopefully being a little more active on the internets.
I also have a few goals for the new year. Gotta make it count! After all, if the totally appropriate and not at all creepy card one of our neighbors (who we have not yet met) taped to our front door is correct, we have just 355 days left to live. Assuming I remember to post this today, January 2nd, and also assuming I can correctly do math and subtract from 366. Because if the year has to end, at least the Mayans did us a solid and predicted the Apocalypse in a leap year so we'd get an extra day. Also, this card thanked us for being their 'best neighbors'. Did I mention we haven't met them? Because we haven't, but I'd really like to high-five them before the restraining order takes effect.
Now, by goals, I really mean the kind of goals that mesh with 80's child rearing style. The kind that says, 'Shoot for the moon, because if you miss you'll land among the stars' and where everyone gets a participation trophy and the losing team still gets ice cream, and the fat kid in gym class (me) still gets an E for effort. The word 'resolution' just sounds so legalistic and foreboding and certain. 'Goals' has a shiny, happy ring of unaccountability to it.
Without further adieu, here are my 2012 Pre-Mayan Apocalypse World Collapse Ruin and Doom Life Goals
1. No hangovers. Seriously. I seem to have 1 or 2 episodes every year where things just get really out of control and it isn't cute. I once projectile vomited with such force that I burst a capillary under my eye. This is because, and I mean this in the least racist, most sincere way possible, the 1/16th or 32nd of my ancestry that is Native American has manifested itself in my liver. I have a mortifying inability to metabolize alcohol. I don't drink that frequently, and I usually try to keep it to a glass or two of wine, which is okay. But anything more than that and I'm doing rain dances and applying war paint. Okay, that might seem a little offensive, but get off my back, guys, I just said I was Native American, so I'm really just taking ownership of the stereotypes.
2. Cook new recipes. This would be a good time to apologize to Andy for cooking a pretty constant rotation of the same 10-15 dinners (that might even be an overly-generous estimate). I should also apologize for the time I made vegetarian burritos that were so spicy they hurt him, and for the time I cooked such spicy food so consistently that he is convinced it gave him an ulcer. But I regret nothing. I make healthy, fiber-rich meals full of antioxidant-laden spices. I don't hear any complaints from my digestive system (in fact, Christmas vacation, full of rich comfort foods, cheese, and nary a single bean, made my intestines cry. And not a cute cry with big ol' sparkly tears, but the ugly cry where you just open your grimacing, contorted maw and wail, but no tears fall. Sorry, too detailed a metaphor?). But I digress. It would be nice to branch out, but I work until 5, at which time I am ready to cry from hunger and exhaustion. It's so easy to go on auto-pilot and cook something I've already made 25 times instead of trying to decipher a new recipe using the 2 remaining brain cells that my body hasn't burned for fuel. It will require a little bit more planning, and maybe a mid-afternoon snack, but I'm game for it. And hey, does anyone want to give me a pat on the back for actually cooking real food instead of microwaving something out of a package? No? No takers? Now I'm embarrassed, you guys.
3. Exercise more consistently. A little blood just trickled out of my ear from the aneurism this cliche caused me to have. But let's get real. I've been working out pretty regularly since the spring of 2008. At first, it was painful. I was pretty out of shape in terms of endurance and strength. But after a short time, I could honestly say that I enjoyed exercising. I get really grouchy when I have to be sedentary for more than a day or two because of random obligations/bad weather and lack of access to exercise facilities/illness. However, my work schedule makes it really inconvenient to go to the gym during the week. Our old apartment was right across the street from the gym, so it wasn't a huge ordeal to work out in the morning before work, or to pop over for a quick workout after work. But now, it's like, ugh, I have to get up, get dressed, and drive all the way across town? No thanks. And it's the same story after work, only by that point I'm also in the blind rage of starvation I like to call 'hangry', so my response would be considerably less civil than 'no thanks'. I often walk to and/or home from work, which is 1.8 miles each way, so that's better than nothing, but I have a hard time counting it as exercise since I'm not sweating or significantly raising my heart rate. So this goal and goal #2 are kind of in competition with one another because they both require time and energy that I just don't have after working from 8-5, but I'm determined to find a way.
4. Earn a faculty-level position at work. I'm really fortunate to have a job with benefits, period. I also like my job and work with super awesome, nice, supportive people. However, the work I'm doing is not what I ultimately had in mind when I was getting my master's degree. Aside from the obvious financial gains, moving into a higher-level position would be tons more stimulating and fulfilling, and probably more flexible. In a perfect world, goal #4 would be awesome in itself and also pave the way for goals #2 and #3, but we'll see what happens.
5. Go to Las Vegas. Clearly, this needs to happen. I feel like it will be Jersey Shore, desert edition, but with a lot more money floating around.
6. Visit the Grand Canyon. This is obvious. I can't be living less than a day's drive from the Grand Canyon and not be able to say that I've been there. We bought an annual National Park passport when we went to Zion and Arches over Thanksgiving, so we might as well visit as many national parks as humanly possible between now and November 2012.
7. Start riding my bike to work. This one will have to wait until morning temperatures reach an acceptable level of non-gangrenous-frostbite-inducingness. Walking to and from work isn't that bad, but icy wind blowing in your face at a high speed? Sorry Earth, but I like having skin and not frozen leather, thanks.
8. Get a new kitty. We checked this one off with flying colors this afternoon, but we need to have her tested for the FIV to make sure she isn't going to infect Ajax. To make a long story short (so I have a topic for another post), I found a kitty, and it loved me, but I did the right thing (oh hay karma points) and turned it in to the local Humane Society in case it was someone's lost pet. No one claimed her so she's totally my new BFF.
9. Sew curtains. I finally bought a sewing machine just in time to start and not (yet) finish Andy's main Christmas present (more on that some other time, because I find it hilarious), and my mom gave me a sweet gift card to JoAnn's for Christmas, so, game on.
10. Blog more. This one will be easy. I think if I post at least twice a month I will probably surpass 2011's average.
11. Paint the master bedroom and office. A lot of our house was already painted, but the previous owners were still in the process of remodeling some of the rooms, so our bedroom is currently an institutional white. After so many stark-white apartments that we weren't allowed to paint, I think I need to either go whole hog and pad the walls, or break the cycle and add a little color to my life.
12. Ski on Utah snow. I'm really excited about this one. I think. I have skied on East Coast snow in the Poconos several times and once in upstate New York, but never often enough to become a proficient skier. I'm naturally highly risk-averse, so the thought of whizzing down an icy hill with slippery boards strapped to my feet has never sounded like a fun thing to do. I can shakily navigate the bunny hills, and can sometimes even get off the ski lift without falling, but that's about the extent of my skill/ambition when it comes to skiing. I am told (repeatedly, ad nauseum) that Utah has the best snow on earth, and that apparently snow can come in powder form and does not always fall from the sky and immediately form an impenetrable icy cement upon contact with other snowflakes.
13. Plant a garden. An edible one. I'm thinking garlic, onions, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, and raspberries. If I could also grow some beans and bananas, and get a goat for milk, I'd never have to go to the store, ever. We'll see how this one goes, since I've managed to kill many a house plant, including cacti.
14. Send out Christmas cards, and remember to send birthday and holiday cards to close family members. I mean, I obviously remember immediate family, but it's time to put on the big girl panties and cast the net a little wider. Also, I have been dying to take a subtly ridiculous Christmas card photo for a long time, but it seems like something really distracting and time consuming is always happening in November and December and I don't get around to it. This will be the year. I can feel it. I might even take one this week just to make sure there are no excuses when November rolls around. Plus if I end up pregnant by then, I can still be (relatively) skinny for the card. I kid, I kid. That better not happen.
15. Get a DSLR camera (birthday...hint, hint...except more like birthday and Christmas for the next 2 years because those bad boys are not cheap) and start doing photography again. I am constantly looking at some landscape or close-up detail of something that I think, wow, this would make a great picture if only I could control the depth of field or the light exposure. But alas. My point-and-shoot digital camera is pretty good, and it has a panoramic function that I am obsessed with, but it's just not the same.
16. Get better about keeping in touch with friends and family. My fingers aren't broken, there's no excuse for me to not pick up the phone and use it. I need to get over my phone-phobia and stop worrying that I'll be bothering people or that I don't have anything interesting to say. I mean, both things are probably true, but who cares, right?
17. Stop apologizing so much and feeling guilty about everything. I am pretty good at deciding to keep my mouth shut so the first part should be easy, but I actually might not be able to help the guilt. It's hereditary, just like my uncooperative liver. Except in this instance, it's only my imaginary fantasy Jewish ancestry. But I'm NOT going to apologize for that. Let's mark that down as one point for me, okay?
18. Volunteer somewhere. After all this talk about ME, should I maybe think about someone or something else for a change? I'm thinking either the animal shelter that held our kitty, or a food bank or something.
19. Next Christmas, ask people to get me Heifer International gifts instead of actual presents.
20. Learn to pack lighter. This actually goes hand in hand with goal #19, and reveals how that seemingly selfless goal is actually rooted in laziness. This Christmas, we deliberately flew back to Utah on Southwest because you can check 2 bags for free, and we knew we'd need the the extra space for presents. We actually had to borrow a full-size suitcase from my mom, which we then filled with our holiday haul. I blame Andy for receiving a pair of hip waders, which took up 40% of the space in said suitcase. There may have been some tense moments with a bathroom scale during which we had to carefully redistribute some items so that none of our three suitcases weighed more than 50 pounds. I also unpacked my suitcase yesterday and realized I didn't wear about 1/3 of the clothes I had taken with me. In an effort to not apologize, and to not give Andy the satisfaction of saying 'I told you so,' I will justify this outcome by saying it was unexpectedly warm in New Jersey, I did laundry while we were there, and I wore some of the clothes I received for Christmas.
21. Start using more natural cleaning/hygiene/beauty products. I do so much other stuff to try to be healthy and feel good, I don't need gross chemicals bringing me down. I already use Tom's deodorant (in the non-sweaty months...sorry Tom's, but you just don't cut it in the summer) and some various natural cleaning products, but I'd like to incorporate more of these things. The only barrier, really, is the expense, so goal #4 would totally allow this goal to become a reality.
I was going to set some more goals, but I figured 21 was plenty, and it's an appropriate number given that the world is going to end on December 21 anyway.
OH MY GOD, less than a year to (think about) attain(ing) these goals. Better get busy!
That's right, no more listening to our neighbors flush the toilet, sing, or get it on. No more smelling their cigarette smoke, no more watching them come and go with large amounts of fast food immediately before and after hearing them get it on. Clearly there's more to home-ownership than avoiding your neighbors (because if anything, home-ownership has brought us into some awkward proximity with some of our new neighbors), but seriously. It's the best. Also, we have not one but three bathrooms. I never want to share a bathroom again for as long as I live.
But now that the whirlwind of new job starting/house hunting/mortgage applying/house buying/moving/unpacking/decorating/wedding attending/Christmas vacationing is behind us, I'm looking forward to settling back into a routine and hopefully being a little more active on the internets.
I also have a few goals for the new year. Gotta make it count! After all, if the totally appropriate and not at all creepy card one of our neighbors (who we have not yet met) taped to our front door is correct, we have just 355 days left to live. Assuming I remember to post this today, January 2nd, and also assuming I can correctly do math and subtract from 366. Because if the year has to end, at least the Mayans did us a solid and predicted the Apocalypse in a leap year so we'd get an extra day. Also, this card thanked us for being their 'best neighbors'. Did I mention we haven't met them? Because we haven't, but I'd really like to high-five them before the restraining order takes effect.
Now, by goals, I really mean the kind of goals that mesh with 80's child rearing style. The kind that says, 'Shoot for the moon, because if you miss you'll land among the stars' and where everyone gets a participation trophy and the losing team still gets ice cream, and the fat kid in gym class (me) still gets an E for effort. The word 'resolution' just sounds so legalistic and foreboding and certain. 'Goals' has a shiny, happy ring of unaccountability to it.
Without further adieu, here are my 2012 Pre-Mayan Apocalypse World Collapse Ruin and Doom Life Goals
1. No hangovers. Seriously. I seem to have 1 or 2 episodes every year where things just get really out of control and it isn't cute. I once projectile vomited with such force that I burst a capillary under my eye. This is because, and I mean this in the least racist, most sincere way possible, the 1/16th or 32nd of my ancestry that is Native American has manifested itself in my liver. I have a mortifying inability to metabolize alcohol. I don't drink that frequently, and I usually try to keep it to a glass or two of wine, which is okay. But anything more than that and I'm doing rain dances and applying war paint. Okay, that might seem a little offensive, but get off my back, guys, I just said I was Native American, so I'm really just taking ownership of the stereotypes.
2. Cook new recipes. This would be a good time to apologize to Andy for cooking a pretty constant rotation of the same 10-15 dinners (that might even be an overly-generous estimate). I should also apologize for the time I made vegetarian burritos that were so spicy they hurt him, and for the time I cooked such spicy food so consistently that he is convinced it gave him an ulcer. But I regret nothing. I make healthy, fiber-rich meals full of antioxidant-laden spices. I don't hear any complaints from my digestive system (in fact, Christmas vacation, full of rich comfort foods, cheese, and nary a single bean, made my intestines cry. And not a cute cry with big ol' sparkly tears, but the ugly cry where you just open your grimacing, contorted maw and wail, but no tears fall. Sorry, too detailed a metaphor?). But I digress. It would be nice to branch out, but I work until 5, at which time I am ready to cry from hunger and exhaustion. It's so easy to go on auto-pilot and cook something I've already made 25 times instead of trying to decipher a new recipe using the 2 remaining brain cells that my body hasn't burned for fuel. It will require a little bit more planning, and maybe a mid-afternoon snack, but I'm game for it. And hey, does anyone want to give me a pat on the back for actually cooking real food instead of microwaving something out of a package? No? No takers? Now I'm embarrassed, you guys.
3. Exercise more consistently. A little blood just trickled out of my ear from the aneurism this cliche caused me to have. But let's get real. I've been working out pretty regularly since the spring of 2008. At first, it was painful. I was pretty out of shape in terms of endurance and strength. But after a short time, I could honestly say that I enjoyed exercising. I get really grouchy when I have to be sedentary for more than a day or two because of random obligations/bad weather and lack of access to exercise facilities/illness. However, my work schedule makes it really inconvenient to go to the gym during the week. Our old apartment was right across the street from the gym, so it wasn't a huge ordeal to work out in the morning before work, or to pop over for a quick workout after work. But now, it's like, ugh, I have to get up, get dressed, and drive all the way across town? No thanks. And it's the same story after work, only by that point I'm also in the blind rage of starvation I like to call 'hangry', so my response would be considerably less civil than 'no thanks'. I often walk to and/or home from work, which is 1.8 miles each way, so that's better than nothing, but I have a hard time counting it as exercise since I'm not sweating or significantly raising my heart rate. So this goal and goal #2 are kind of in competition with one another because they both require time and energy that I just don't have after working from 8-5, but I'm determined to find a way.
4. Earn a faculty-level position at work. I'm really fortunate to have a job with benefits, period. I also like my job and work with super awesome, nice, supportive people. However, the work I'm doing is not what I ultimately had in mind when I was getting my master's degree. Aside from the obvious financial gains, moving into a higher-level position would be tons more stimulating and fulfilling, and probably more flexible. In a perfect world, goal #4 would be awesome in itself and also pave the way for goals #2 and #3, but we'll see what happens.
5. Go to Las Vegas. Clearly, this needs to happen. I feel like it will be Jersey Shore, desert edition, but with a lot more money floating around.
6. Visit the Grand Canyon. This is obvious. I can't be living less than a day's drive from the Grand Canyon and not be able to say that I've been there. We bought an annual National Park passport when we went to Zion and Arches over Thanksgiving, so we might as well visit as many national parks as humanly possible between now and November 2012.
7. Start riding my bike to work. This one will have to wait until morning temperatures reach an acceptable level of non-gangrenous-frostbite-inducingness. Walking to and from work isn't that bad, but icy wind blowing in your face at a high speed? Sorry Earth, but I like having skin and not frozen leather, thanks.
8. Get a new kitty. We checked this one off with flying colors this afternoon, but we need to have her tested for the FIV to make sure she isn't going to infect Ajax. To make a long story short (so I have a topic for another post), I found a kitty, and it loved me, but I did the right thing (oh hay karma points) and turned it in to the local Humane Society in case it was someone's lost pet. No one claimed her so she's totally my new BFF.
9. Sew curtains. I finally bought a sewing machine just in time to start and not (yet) finish Andy's main Christmas present (more on that some other time, because I find it hilarious), and my mom gave me a sweet gift card to JoAnn's for Christmas, so, game on.
10. Blog more. This one will be easy. I think if I post at least twice a month I will probably surpass 2011's average.
11. Paint the master bedroom and office. A lot of our house was already painted, but the previous owners were still in the process of remodeling some of the rooms, so our bedroom is currently an institutional white. After so many stark-white apartments that we weren't allowed to paint, I think I need to either go whole hog and pad the walls, or break the cycle and add a little color to my life.
12. Ski on Utah snow. I'm really excited about this one. I think. I have skied on East Coast snow in the Poconos several times and once in upstate New York, but never often enough to become a proficient skier. I'm naturally highly risk-averse, so the thought of whizzing down an icy hill with slippery boards strapped to my feet has never sounded like a fun thing to do. I can shakily navigate the bunny hills, and can sometimes even get off the ski lift without falling, but that's about the extent of my skill/ambition when it comes to skiing. I am told (repeatedly, ad nauseum) that Utah has the best snow on earth, and that apparently snow can come in powder form and does not always fall from the sky and immediately form an impenetrable icy cement upon contact with other snowflakes.
13. Plant a garden. An edible one. I'm thinking garlic, onions, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, and raspberries. If I could also grow some beans and bananas, and get a goat for milk, I'd never have to go to the store, ever. We'll see how this one goes, since I've managed to kill many a house plant, including cacti.
14. Send out Christmas cards, and remember to send birthday and holiday cards to close family members. I mean, I obviously remember immediate family, but it's time to put on the big girl panties and cast the net a little wider. Also, I have been dying to take a subtly ridiculous Christmas card photo for a long time, but it seems like something really distracting and time consuming is always happening in November and December and I don't get around to it. This will be the year. I can feel it. I might even take one this week just to make sure there are no excuses when November rolls around. Plus if I end up pregnant by then, I can still be (relatively) skinny for the card. I kid, I kid. That better not happen.
15. Get a DSLR camera (birthday...hint, hint...except more like birthday and Christmas for the next 2 years because those bad boys are not cheap) and start doing photography again. I am constantly looking at some landscape or close-up detail of something that I think, wow, this would make a great picture if only I could control the depth of field or the light exposure. But alas. My point-and-shoot digital camera is pretty good, and it has a panoramic function that I am obsessed with, but it's just not the same.
16. Get better about keeping in touch with friends and family. My fingers aren't broken, there's no excuse for me to not pick up the phone and use it. I need to get over my phone-phobia and stop worrying that I'll be bothering people or that I don't have anything interesting to say. I mean, both things are probably true, but who cares, right?
17. Stop apologizing so much and feeling guilty about everything. I am pretty good at deciding to keep my mouth shut so the first part should be easy, but I actually might not be able to help the guilt. It's hereditary, just like my uncooperative liver. Except in this instance, it's only my imaginary fantasy Jewish ancestry. But I'm NOT going to apologize for that. Let's mark that down as one point for me, okay?
18. Volunteer somewhere. After all this talk about ME, should I maybe think about someone or something else for a change? I'm thinking either the animal shelter that held our kitty, or a food bank or something.
19. Next Christmas, ask people to get me Heifer International gifts instead of actual presents.
20. Learn to pack lighter. This actually goes hand in hand with goal #19, and reveals how that seemingly selfless goal is actually rooted in laziness. This Christmas, we deliberately flew back to Utah on Southwest because you can check 2 bags for free, and we knew we'd need the the extra space for presents. We actually had to borrow a full-size suitcase from my mom, which we then filled with our holiday haul. I blame Andy for receiving a pair of hip waders, which took up 40% of the space in said suitcase. There may have been some tense moments with a bathroom scale during which we had to carefully redistribute some items so that none of our three suitcases weighed more than 50 pounds. I also unpacked my suitcase yesterday and realized I didn't wear about 1/3 of the clothes I had taken with me. In an effort to not apologize, and to not give Andy the satisfaction of saying 'I told you so,' I will justify this outcome by saying it was unexpectedly warm in New Jersey, I did laundry while we were there, and I wore some of the clothes I received for Christmas.
21. Start using more natural cleaning/hygiene/beauty products. I do so much other stuff to try to be healthy and feel good, I don't need gross chemicals bringing me down. I already use Tom's deodorant (in the non-sweaty months...sorry Tom's, but you just don't cut it in the summer) and some various natural cleaning products, but I'd like to incorporate more of these things. The only barrier, really, is the expense, so goal #4 would totally allow this goal to become a reality.
I was going to set some more goals, but I figured 21 was plenty, and it's an appropriate number given that the world is going to end on December 21 anyway.
OH MY GOD, less than a year to (think about) attain(ing) these goals. Better get busy!
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