Snarky Skater Sunday

If you don't want your kid to get hit by a faster skater, tell them not to weave randomly, stop randomly, or randomly shoot off at a 90 degree angle to the wall.  It's like trying to navigate an asteroid field.

Christmas Wish List 2010

Wreck This Journal

Starbucks Gift Cards

Lego Wii Remote

Lemon Lotion

Cat Fight!

That's Momo striking out for truth, justice and the Feline Way. (Also, he is nuts and thinks he's BMOC.) Sibbie is not without resources, however. Check out the clawed foot, lower left. Ouch!

Song Review

There are not many songs that can bring me to tears. Ok, that's not entirely true, but the tears I shed for "Butterfly Kisses" are more like "Hallmark" tears and not as grief stricken as when I hear this song. This whole album is on the ipod, and Lee and I sing it in the car... it's a beautiful duet by Alison Kraus and Robert Plant.

Here are the words, but take a listen, too, and see if it touches that well of sadness reserved for times when this song would be sung.

God's given us years of happiness here
Now we must part
And as the angels come and call for you
The pains of grief tug at my heart

Oh my darling
My darling
My heart breaks as you take your long journey

Oh the days will be empty
The nights so long without you my love
And when God calls for you I'm left alone
But we will meet in heaven above

Oh my darling
My darling
My heart breaks as you take your long journey

Fond memories I'll keep of happy ways
That on earth we trod
And when I come we will walk hand in hand
As one in heaven in the family of God

Oh my darling
My darling
My heart breaks as you take your long journey

The Losing Game

I have now lost 8 pounds since Christmas. How? Diet and exercise. I know, right? It stinks that that is actually the answer. I've been tempted (not really, but kind of, you know) to try a diet aid. But I figured I don't really want to act like a hummingbird on acid... so, I guess the old EAT LESS, and EXERCISE MORE is the way to go.

I feel a lot better about myself, about my clothes and how they fit, and about the example I'm setting for my children. I don't know who said it, but I heard someone say "Stop saying you don't have time to exercise... some of the busiest people in the world find time to do it." Ok, ok, I know you're right, but it's BORING, and I'm TIRED, and, and, and... And you have muffin top, so just DO IT, ok? You'll feel better... and dang it, I do. :)

Cool!

Thanks, kid!

The only beef I have with our YMCA's workout area is that there is no designated place to stretch. I end up out in the hall with people who want killer abs. I guess that's what they're doing... why else would they be laying on their backs, tossing a medicine ball in the air while doing crunches? Is that Killer Abs, or Exercises That Will Kill You?

So, I was stretching tonight after 30 minutes of the elliptical and 30 minutes of the treadmill, and about 7.5 minutes of "weight lifting". I was TECHNICALLY lifting weights... oooh... 8 pounds... in each hand, people.

Anyway, stretching... pleased to find that my right hip feels better... I thought I'd pulled something other than a muscle and didn't want to admit that maybe I am almost 40, and whattheheckamIthinkingtakingkarate?

Oh, yeah, out in the hall... so I'm out there stretching, and there's a girl wandering up and down the hall. Children under 12 are not allowed in the workout area... I saw a Mom and some kids get busted tonight. I was just wondering if I should say something to someone and the Y guy pushed them out. So, I can only assume that this girl was an exercise orphan and her mom was working out.

Ok, here's another beef I have with the local Y. They have childcare available for children UP TO 8 years old. Then there is nothing except classes that kids 9-14 can do. They can workout at 12 IF you pay money and they get trained on the equipment, and they have to wear a lanyard in the workout area. I totally understand that, but it leaves a big gap in ages to fill. They do have a "Teen Center" for that age group, but it looks totally unsupervised.

Oh, right... this girl walking the hall. She was crunching on Doritos and chugging something blue. I was thinking "Just finish your #$%@ Doritos already." That was really all I had to say... hmmm... not that interesting, now that I think about it. Never mind.

3 Pounds Down, and New Motivation.

I have lost 3 pounds so far... about 1 pound a week. Working out makes a HUGE difference in conjunction with eating better. Duh. Why do I think it won't matter?

Vitamin D has returned me to my Summer Self... the one without SADD. Seriously. Why was I not taking it before?

My Father in Law weighs just a few pounds more than me. That's the motivation part. He's 5'11" and recently lost a few pounds by not drinking anything with sugar in it. And I thought, maybe I should never weigh as much as a tall man.

No Respect!

Since getting children, there is very little that I can now call my own. By and large, the contents of my desk are mine, although I have conceded the front drawer that holds the pens. The children largely leave my working space alone after much exhortation.

One cat, however, is no respecter of personal property. Let me count the ways...

The Easy Way or The Hard Way

Easy/Hard... all amounts to the same thing when you're trying to lose weight and get in shape.

"It's so EASY... just eat less and exercise more."

"It's so HARD... eating less and exercising more totally sucks."

Day 4: still on track, but realizing it's gonna be a long haul. It's Day 4 of the rest of my life.

Dear Cats that live in our house,

Rico, Thank you for keeping my spot warm while I get up to go to the bathroom. If you would only give me my spot BACK once I return, I wouldn't be forced to evict you.

Murray, I know that it is considered "high art" among your feline set, but please stop leaving your "art" on our white bedspread.

Momo, I'm sorry about the blanket I threw over you and the subsequent sparks that ensued while you tried to get out. That's called "static electricity" and now you know a little more science than you did before.

Sibbie, thank you for keeping our borders safe. Your patrol at 10 p.m. helps all of us sleep better.

Back in the Saddle... Again...

I debated about writing about this, just in case I FAILED. You know... wouldn't want people to know I'm a MERE MORTAL. I'm back to the weight I was 2 years ago, and while my pants TECHNICALLY fit, there's a bit more of me than can be contained at the waistline. Yes, my friends, I've got a muffin top. Also, it's getting harder to blame the dryer on shrinkage of jeans that I've had for 3 years.



















I have been successful with Weight Watchers in the past... I reach goal, and then I kind of forget about all the tools to keep the weight off, and I slip back into bad habits.

This time, I don't have the time or money to go to meetings. Since I'm a life time member (I reached my goal 6 years ago, and 2 years ago, again.), it's free for me IF I am at my goal weight or lower. It's $12 a meeting if I'm not, which I'm not. I like the support of the meetings, but I'd like to think I could do this without paying a bunch of money.

As a program, I like Weight Watchers for the portion control, and the ease of use. There is one thing I don't like, and this isn't TOTALLY WW's fault, but the "WW culture." It is possible to eat a WW sanctioned meal that doesn't actually have much FOOD in it. The fake sweeteners, using cooking spray instead of real oil, substituting "food products" for "food" are, if not encouraged, are accepted. Of course, WW says to eat more real veggies and fruits, etc, but it is possible to still lose weight while eating fake food.

The other thing I find outrageous, is that all the yummy foods are penalized for having SUGAR, or FAT, or NO FIBER. It's as if these foods MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT. I don't buy it. :)

If you don't know how the Point System for WW works, it's roughly 1 pt. for every 50 calories. I get 22-27 pts. per day. The bowl of chili I had for lunch was 1 point per cup because of its high fiber and no fat. This dish composed of 24 mini corn chips and 1 oz. of cheddar cheese was 6 pts. You can see the spoon for scale... this was a small plate. I guess I could have eaten 6 more cups of chili, but no one but my colon would have benefitted.

Pick Me!

I spent 7 months in Austria in 1996. I believe that makes me uniquely qualified to be the Vice President of the United States. Oh, wait, someone has already been picked? AND she LIVES between two foreign countries? Oh, rats!!

Mentos and Diet Coke

Literary Sucker

I am an absolute sucker for these lists...

Bold the ones you've read, dash -- the ones you read for school, and italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. Here's the twist: add (*) beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend to other people.

--The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela’s Ashes: a Memoir
Angels & Demons
*Anna Karenina
*Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
--The Canterbury Tales
The Catcher in the Rye
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
*Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
The God of Small Things
--The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
--Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian : a novel
*The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
--The Iliad
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
The Inferno
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Kite Runner
*Les Misérables
Life of Pi : a novel
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
*Middlemarch
Middlesex
Mrs. Dalloway
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
Neverwhere
1984
Northanger Abbey
--The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
The Once and Future King
One Hundred Years of Solitude
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Oryx and Crake : a novel
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
The Satanic Verses
--The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
*A Tale of Two Cities
*Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Time Traveler’s Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace
*Watership Down
White Teeth
*Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
Wuthering Heights
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into value

Something I noticed today...

that has nothing to do with adoption!

I haven't blogged here in so long, I don't know who will even read this... guess it doesn't matter...

OK, so I was on my way home and I noticed on the car next to me, that the gas plate thingy, because of it's location, had to have a crease put in it to match the body of the car.

I thought that was pretty stupid, and imagined the guy that designs the gas tank assembly being all EYE-ROLL "Look what they did again... can they not put the gas cap on the smooth part of the car?

Then I noticed that almost every car has that "feature" and I wondered how much $ it costs to have to do that, and how much $ it costs the consumer to have that.

Then I started thinking about IKEA, and how they should design cars, like they design their products... stackable, easily shippable. Dunno, it just kind of tickled me... IKEA cars. You heard it here first.

Blogging Here Now

Lee and I are blogging here now, in case you wondered where we went...

Rough Seas

We took the SS Badger from Manitowoc, WI to Ludington, MI this past weekend. It's about the 4th (?) time we've done it. My dad lives in Interlochen, and there's an annual "Sunday before Memorial Day Marek Get-together" at Don's in Mancelona. Don is my dad's cousin, which makes him what to me? Uncle Don?

Don is REALLY into antiques. Every item in his "cabin" has a story. Turns out he had a story of his own.... I'll tell you because it's really one of those miracle situations... He and a friend were driving back from an antique show in SC. They were on a highway in KY when his friend, who was driving, passed out. Don only had time to yank the steering wheel to keep them from hitting the concrete barrier. They flew off the highway, over and down a 65 foot hill. He thought, "This is it, I am going to die." They flew through saplings and glanced off a couple of larger trees. At the base of the hill were more saplings growing in front of a metal fence... those two things created a spring and a pretty soft landing. His next thought was "Holy S---, I'm still alive." His friend was alive, but groggy. Don was able to climb up out of the ravine and call for help. His friend possibly had low blood sugar... that's all they can think. Neither needed medical attention.

Had any one little bit of that story been different, it would have had a different outcome. Not to mention the fact that no one could see where they went off the road. Don is a changed man. He said things that made him uptight or worry before no longer do.

Anyway, I didn't mean to tangent like that, it's just such an amazing story.

Back to the Badger. The way over was fine and enjoyable as always. The ride home, however, we experienced rough waves the whole way. I used "Sea Bands" and ginger candy, and reclined in a darkened room almost the whole trip. Between those things, I was alright. I stocked up on the ginger candy for our upcoming trip. Lee slept the whole time. I heard a couple of kids tossing their cookies in the hallway. That sound! There were several adults that smiled ruefully as we all tried to pretend not to hear it.

Merging

I blogged here about my 1st foray into Ethiopian cooking.

Olives, Cherries and Eggs

What do these 3 things have in common?

All were hurled at my car while it was parked in front of our house. I had parked there because I got home late and Lee's car was in the way and I was lazy.

Lee's car has been egged, what, 2, 3 times? We usually don't park in the street for that reason.

What I don't get is the olives and the cherries. Was there a sale? Is this a new thing we're not cool enough to know? Those crazy kids... what they're into these days...

Lee gets extra props for cleaning my car late last night and moving his car and then moving my car, and then moving HIS car behind MY car. All without waking me up.