Therapy...

... has turned my brain to mush, and now all I can do at the moment is drink a lovely chardonnay and listen to the "Milkshake" song, over and over and over again on my iPod (in my defense, it's the DJ Zinc version, which is somehow way cooler and makes this less creepy).

I've known for many a year that it's best to keep my personal pathologies under wraps, deeply buried, away from the prying eyes of spectators. And as a venerate naval gazer from waaaay back, I'm already well aware of my problem areas, diagnosed three generations back, with those even in the periphery sorted into tidy DSM IV classifications....
So why, o why, do I need the validation of strangers to confirm what I already know?
And what exactly will I do when all my scary parts are dangling in the open air, exposed for all to see (yick! once those beasts are unleashed from their restraints, will I ever be able to tuck them back into the tidy package they were crammed into all those years? Doubt it)?
And once my analysis really gets rocking, does this mean that I will be forced to stop smoking crack, beating the children, and sleeping with random men I meet at the local truck stop?
Soooooooooo unfair!
Or will it mean that I'll end up living in a cardboard box by the railroad tracks once my selfish attempts at self actualization fall flat???

Sounds fan-freaking-tastic, and I get to pay big ole $$$ for the fun of it all!
PMS+ analysis=one shitty day:-(

I leave you with this synopsis of my inner turmoil du jour, one of the more entertaining ones:

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Bleah!/Pumpkin Pie Custard

Lazy Sunday, not much going on... amazing how much and how little you can get done in the span of a day when you're slogging thru, barely paying attention.
Didn't make it to the groovy outing this weekend, which bums me out a little; but I don't know exactly how I would handle more evidence that I am wasting the best of my years worshiping at the feet of the Blockbuster movie club, or more acknowledgement that some people's worlds are interesting and large, and mine... well, mine is not.

Ah, PMS! I feel your sweet embrace!

Perhaps THAT could be why I am insatiable lately, didn't even consider it until I pulled out my appointment book (phone) and mapped it out-- damn! When I worked at a women's health clinic years ago, I was always amazed at how 14 year old girls knew with amazing accuracy when their "friends" would arrive... me, I'm pushing 40 and still have no clue.
Could be why everything is making me crazy, including this stupid keyboard in which the space button, for cripes sake, isn't working correctly. Considering that this is where the children play their games/do my space, etc, there is likely enuff food under the keys to feed a hungry toddler... it's a wonder it works at all and I should be grateful, instead of wanting to throw the whole thing under a moving train-- gar! Soo getting tired of having to go back and put all the spaces in between the words, wahhhhhhh!

Interesting weekend, to be sure. Grace's counselor suggested that we try and do something with the girl, something she wanted to do, in an effort to spend time with her/get to know her/etc. Never you mind that every time we try to talk to her, she tells us to either "shut up" or "go away", and tells us "I don't know" when we ask her what she would like to do.... so in the absence of the slightest idea, we gleaned a little:
She was talking earlier in the day about some shop she and her friends had travelled to the day before, which had some items she really liked.
So off we went, in search of things to buy to demonstrate our parental interest and love.
So where did my daughter take us???
To a head shop in Racine, ick!, which reeked of patchouli, incense, and other such things I swore off years and years ago. I mean, really-- is this crap genetic? Girl knows very little about my past (she could care less, as surely it was lame and of no interest to a hipster like herself, lol!); about my travelling with the Grateful Dead (had to chuckle at the vast array of Jerry and GD merchandise... um, most of those geezers are long gone), and my opening a shop much like this one (only like 1000x nicer; no drug paraphernalia, nasty piercing stuff... it was all handmade artwork and imports from India, Guatemala, Bali, etc).
So I'm standing in this shop with my kid and I'm thinking: "I don't have any clue who this girl is anymore", this teenager who (unbeknownst to me) has been dilating the piercings in her ears (my appeal that she will have droopy gramma holes that will never heal fell on deaf earlobes; she pulled out her piercing and I almost fell over when I saw the gaping hole, so gross!), this girl who is standing on the precipice of being just a little too much like me as a young person-- only way younger, much more immature, and much too eager for all the trouble that surrounds her.
Me, I was so much more of a spectator: found things fascinating, yet was unwilling to commit to any one lifestyle and would move on to the next shiny and interesting thing as soon as I felt I had figured the old one out (I was also somewhat concerned about getting in TROUBLE: didn't want to really get too involved in anything that might be a problem later, you know, if I wanted to run for public office later in life, tee hee).
Daughter, however, loves it all, and it makes me a little nervous.
We ended an unsettling afternoon by stopping by the Old Country Buffet, where Grace used to love to go with her grandpa. Place is quite the melting pot, I'll tell ya: there was a 450# lady who was talking about her pregnant 14 year old and how she needed another trip to the dessert bar, if only her arthritic knees could carry her there; a booth of fine Hispanic men who looked like they wanted to eat my daughter for dessert (and my husband, the sweet talker said "they were even checking YOU out", as if a booth full of men who would screw any drunken thing they could immobilize for 45 seconds wouldn't be so desperate to oogle an old broad like myself-- hey! If you don't have enuff sex appeal to entice those sorts of guys, you might as well just sew it up and move in with the nuns next door).
Oh! And then there was the group of ladies who were with a baby shower who were standing next to me at the salad bar wearing nametags that said: "Baby Poop", and "Spitup", etc : mmmmmmmmm! That's a tasty visual, ho ho ho. Good thing the folks from NAACOG weren't meeting there, with humorous nametags that read:"Pap Smear", "Genital Warts", or "Herpetic Lesion", might have been a little yucky... but I suppose, now that I think about it, me and the ladies from work could get in on the fun: I could be "Irritable Bowel" (get it? PMS???), and someone could be "Colon Polyp", and another could be "Bowel Prep", wheeee! We could hang out by the gravies and gross people out into eating their mashed potatoes dry...

Anyhoo, told ya I was bitchy!

Fabulous PMS food (and low carb, for the most part..)

Heat in a pan for 10-15 minutes, stirring constantly with a spatula:
1 15 oz can pumpkin (I threw in a cooked sweet potato that we had left over from dinner the other day, too)
Bunch of ginger (1-2 tbs fresh or 1-2 tsp ground)
1/2 tsp cinnamon, to taste
1/2 tsp nutmeg, to taste
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup sugar free vanilla syrup

In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup milk with 4 eggs until well blended. Whisk in pumpkin mixture until smooth.
Bake at 325 degrees in a casserole dish that is immersed in a larger pan filled 1/2 full with water. Bake for 50-60 minutes until center almost set; prop over door open with a pot holder and allow to sit for 20-30 minutes until custard is set. Refrigerate overnight, and try not to eat the whole thing for breakfast... Jacob really liked this served with extra maple syrup, lucky little dude! Soooo glad we have a gallon left until we can make more next spring:-)

p.s. my bad knee is getting wonky, completely blue about that as well. WTF will I do if it blows out, and I can't participate in my acts of daily absolution?
Won't end up doing all 3 classes tomorrow in an effort to be cautions, just spin and swim. Pretty sure it was the stoopid scuplting class "walking with resistance bands wrapped around your feet" thingey that messed up my ligaments, boo. And I've been trying to be so careful! Anyway... I remember reading something somewhere (hazard of reading 6 things at once... minimal retention) about your joints and ligaments being more labile during your special girlie time, bah! Stupid hormones!

Constant Craving...

The diet has been clipping along nicely the past few weeks; haven't lost a pound in like forever, but the tidy sensation of self control is highly gratifying, even if it amounts to little more than self induced S&M:

I have been SUCH a bad girl lately tho and in much need of discipline, craving food like crazy... and not necessarily foods I can't eat per se (went to an ice cream shop tonight with the fam and didn't bat an eyelash), but just wanting to *eat* and *eat* and *eat*. Maybe it's all the spin classes et al ramping up the appetite, but I don't like it AT ALL; much easier to whip myself into submission when I could care less if I ate or not, but not so much fun when I sit during an entire 2 hour movie and have orgiastic fantasies about bunless cheeseburgers and chocolate raspberry ricotta smoothies (eating one now, as a matter of fact... blend 1/2 handful of frozen blackberries, 2 tbs unsweetened dark chocolate powder, 1/4-1/2 cup skim milk, 1/4 cup lowfat ricotta, a glug of sugar free Kahlua syrup... eat with a spoon and try not to moan so loud you wake the kids up).
I am *sorely* in need of a plan, where to go from here so I don't keep feasting on nuts and sprouted grain crackers every time I'm at a loss for what to put in my mouth.

Sing it, KD; girl knows just what I'm talkin about:

Guess Who..

...I ended up sitting only a couple feet behind while I was on my scooter, waiting for the light to change?
Sporty Guy!!! (ooOOooOOOOooooooo!)
Seeing that he wasn't moving at a high rate of speed for a change, didn't have mirrors to catch me peeking, and wasn't looking back, I took the opportunity to investigate at length the muscles of his famed dreamy thighs, his sinewy arms, his complete lack of body fat... sigh! Even his bike is slender and sexy looking, a far cry from my Pee Wee Herman put-put bike with my big ole mom basket.
Why do I see this guy almost every day, every where, allover the place?
One of the great mysteries of the world, no doubt...

Something completely unrelated:
You know what I miss???
I miss living in a low budget girlie pad, where none of the decor costs more than $6.99, and the "window treatments" are nothing greater than cool pieces of fabric strategically pinned to the curtain rods. Being a fully fledged grownup is certainly weighty in a number of ways, keeping up with the Joneses a fine aspiration, but give me a place where there is little worry about how sterile the joint is vs how cool and interesting your stuff is, and I'd be a happy happy girl. Bah! Being a member of the middle class is HIGHLY overrated.


Or your house, neither, cause I'll prolly mess it up and make it look like Pee Wee's suburbanite ranch, bike and all.

Ow!

Discovered something new yesterday:
Sculpting class is wicked evil; I could hardly walk properly today...
And another fitness tidbit to mention: when you are already having difficulty walking, doing an hour long spin class is soooooo not a good idea. It felt GREAT while I had the endorphins flowing, but they all seem to be absent now and the ibuprofen has since become a weak balm.
Had a wee little stressful sort of day, had a million things going on, and didn't have time to eat dinner. Thusly, upon arriving home at 9:30 PM, starving like mad, I had a scarf of desperation that would have made even Dr. Atkins hurl:
4 slices of bacon (cold), a scoop of cottage cheese (directly from the container), a handful of nuts, a 1/2 package of sprouted wheat crackers (it was small..), 3 sugar free chocolate candies, and a sugar free fudge bar. Damn! I guess if you're going to cheat and eat like a cow, you should do it up properly... at least I didn't gorge myself on carbs.

Politics (as much as you'll ever see from me)...

Bwahahaaaahahahahaaaahahahaaa!

Did that "3 hours at the gym" thing today again, and feel a whole lot better than I did the first time 'round... in fact, this morning I was sweating it out in spin class (which is normally not my thing that early), and I'm doing just great, really getting into it, and the guy says: "Ok, this is our last song"... I was like: "say what?" and cranked my resistance up as high as I could stand it.
How'd that happen??

Love love loving getting back in shape; it's become quite the fun little addiction, and I'm totally not hating the results, either. I started a bellydance class this past weekend as well, but sadly am not sure if the class will continue, since there aren't enough participants. Maybe it's just karma trying to keep me from humiliating myself, from shaking my thing (thang?) on stage someday for all to see, but it's been fun practicing my lil bellydance moves all over the house. I've known since waaaaay back in my club hopping days that I was a closet hoochie dancer; get this girl some platform heels, a mirror, and something to twirl around (oh! and a martini..), and I'll be happy for hours on end....but best to keep such things private;-)

One more thing:
More oddball fun! Anybody want to go with me? Guaranteed to make you scratch your head in consternation for weeks to come; a wonderful diversion from politics, the collapse of the economy, chronic boredom, and other such unpleasantries. Plus, you get to hang with me, which is usually good for a chuckle, wheeeeeee! (I'll leave the platform heels at home, promise...)

Friends:

Not 100% sure I've drank enough wine to get the creative juices flowing... some days, the posts just flow from my fingers into creation; other times, they need a little jump start...

Can't even begin to express how nice it was to *finally* have company over today; there's something about sharing where you live with other people that makes you see your life in a new perspective (sometimes good, sometimes bad, tee hee).
And I truly do feel that if it wasn't for company, I'd NEVER clean beyond the most obvious:
Starting at 7 am, in frenzied anticipation of witnesses to my poor housekeeping skills, I was cleaning the faces of the cupboards, washing the grates to the stove, etc and etc... we women are ruthless when it comes to domestic self abuse, so no matter how much I cleaned, dusted, tidied, and downright *hid* piles of clutter, it never seemed like it was enough. I even gave the chicken coop a quick brush up and weeded the gardens a bit, der!
And who really cares? Cause unless Martha herself was coming to call, no one would likely notice.
Can't tell ya, either, how much fun it is to hang with our old/new friends, Todd and Lynn:
Is it really that strange to be friends with your teenage boyfriend and his wife, even if the teeny bopper romance ended over 20 years ago? Really??
So do you think Jerry Springer will be showing up at the door anytime soon...
and will he notice that the chicken coop is in disarray and the gardens are a mess????
Sigh!

Friends are hard to come by, especially those who knew you before life got so complicated, so I'm not going to over analyze...
*Fun* people are hard to come by as well, so I'm glad that any awkwardness can be overlooked and we can enjoy the newness of friendships begun and those small bits of familiarity of the best and oldest of friends.

Damn! Now I've drank too much, and I'm sleeeeepy:-(
There's so not a set formula for liquid inspiration, and it seems I've overdosed... off to bed, to face a chaotic week of working too much and catching up on my finances, wheeeee!

p.s. read something interesting tonight, written by a man who recently ended his own life:

" Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.
Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out."
http://reno.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html

25 Miles:

The weather in the Great North has been gor-ge-ous the past few days... and as such, have not been the least bit sad when getting sent home a little early from work, even tho I am on the verge of being broker than broke;-)
Yesterday, I lounged outside in the shade and felt the breeze on my face, the indirect warmth filtering thru the leaves of the maple tree; I leaned back in the lawn chair, closed my eyes, and tried my hardest to pretend it was still summer. Lovely!
Today, I got an itch to make a run to the library, my 7 mile easy loop, as a prelude to my evening spin class. I was sloow and tired, didn't want to push myself too hard knowing what was in store later at the gym (hell, that's what). Picked up so many good books and a pair of yummy shoes from my favorite thrift store (they were quite the slutty find, considering they came from the Christian Charity resale shop, tee hee), that I could barely get everything home-- thank God for bungee cords...
It's funny, in a weight loss/fitness situation, that plateau you reach when you've lost quite a bit of weight and are more fit than you've been in a long time... and thus are fit and slender enough to start comparing yourself to *everyone else*, bummer. Which then begins to illuminate how much more weight you need to lose, and then that rosy glow of accomplishment begins to fade.
Tired! More later...

Hey Ya!

Gar!

Girl needs a cocktail, like, 2 hours ago...

Between the children's drama and other such unpleasantries, here sits I, trying to concoct a low-carb girlie martini in lieu of dinner: unsweetened cranberry juice, stevia, vodka... or should it be: sugar free irish cream coffee syrup and vodka?
Desperate times call for desperate measures, just hope I can choke it down.
And here's to hoping the hangover doesn't keep me from spin class and my trip to the police station tomorrow... cheers, motherfuckers!

Awkward:

Every once in a blue moon, life presents you with evidence that whilst you are numbly making your way through the average middle class experience, some very interesting things are afoot... that while you are doing laundry or watching another lame movie from the Blockbuster on another Saturday night, people are interacting, having heaps o fun, and experiencing life in strange new ways.
Enter the Miltown Kings with Dead Man's Carnival up at the Miramar, beloved venue where we saw the Ditty Bops last year:
Not 100% sure what the evening's entertainment had in store, just that it was some sort of vaudeville drag show-slash-carnival-- how could it NOT be cool?

I was the slightest bit confused when I saw that the ticket taker was a gal with a mustache (or was it a dude with boobs??) and wondered for a second what the deal was... and then when a couple really solid, squarish women with manly haircuts kicked us out of our seats it started to become more clear (how bullish! there weren't assigned seats, tee hee).
Well, slap me silly, but I had never heard of a "Drag King" show... and I thought I was at one point quite the worldly girlie, bummer. Anyhoo, the show was well done, the emcee absolutely hilarious, the performers really talented (the striptease with the ample bootied, small breasted woman was, hmmm, interesting... not the source of titillation I suspect it was meant to be, but inspiring that another woman from my tribe of "chubby girls with no breasts" was comfortable enough in her own skin to strut her stuff on stage for all to see). Since it was my stepdaughter Emily who suggested our evening out, I leaned over at that point and reminded her how lucky she was to have us for her parents, or the whole experience might have been a little..... awkward;-)

The fire juggling act-- cool! The skinny dude in the dress who stripped down to a thong that was clearly too grande in the pouch-- not cool! (sorry, skinny dude.. my open mindedness of body imperfections is fairly limited to women).

As we were walking out of the theater and eavesdropping on a group of gals, I overheard one of the ladies say: "yeah, I think I may have met you already-- we made out one time outside a club, but I never got your name"... snort!
Overall, a fascinating experience, and long overdue.
And much kudos to the husband, who was willing to be dragged--yet again-- to something that would make the average man run screaming into the night.. it's why I married him, after all:-)
In homage, I present to you Ms. Ani DiFranco:

p.s. got me some Ani tickets for her Madison concert next month, oh yeah!

18#:

As of a couple days ago, I'm down 18#, can't hardly believe it:-)
Only 10 to go.... (ok, is that starting to get a little creepy, 'cause that # is never going down? As a former Miss Annie Rexic I guess I'll need to watch that, but figure I'm pretty darn safe for about 30 more # or so, tee hee)
In fact, pulled on a pair of those jeans from the shop-a-thon the other day, and even out of the dryer are a little baggy now. Hmmmmmmmm...spin classes clearly rock as equally as they suck major butt.

SO crazy busy these days, and as a result screwed up Grace's Dr's appointment AGAIN: between the gym, work (+ new job), school (and my school, which hasn't even started yet), the kid's schedules, maintaining the houshold, etc, life is kicking my ass right now, and we's just getting started.

Speaking of ass kicking (and I'll list these in order of importance): got me butt kicked in spin this morning, go figure. Maybe I'm just not a morning person, but slogging thru and then doing swim aerobics really hard works out well...
Oh! And I also bought 3 esssspensive Aveda lipsticks at the salon today (quite the splurge for me) in dark, rich shades. Husband, in addition to not completely liking the 'do, sniffed at them and asked why I didn't get a frosty pink one instead-- gar! Thought guys liked full, dark red lips. Men... what a mystery (the mystery being how long it will be before he gets any again, truly)!

Here's something a little silly:


And something a little sad:


Just for funs, I rode my bike to the library at full speed in my highest gear-- the ENTIRE way. Sheeeeee-ooooot: Just a few spin classes and I've already kicked up the self abuse a notch. I was doing pretty darn good, too, until I got to that last gigantic hill. I had hoped to sprint up, but instead crawwwwlllled up-- but still in the highest gear (used to be spinning my wheels and panting at 2 or 3, a different creature altogether at 7, wheeeeeee!). Love love love to kick my OWN ass, too, I guess. Prolly need to take a number these days, tho-- yah.

Woo Hoo!!!

Normally, I would think a song like this was totally saptacular (being a fairly non sentimental person, except recently..), but this was the song that pulled me thru a *really* intense spin class tonight, and who would ever have thought???

This would be class #3 for me (4 total; the first one scared me off spin for *many* years..), and only wound up in spin after being tricked into it today, as I swore to my limpy self that I would take at least a day off.

I was feeling antsy after my day of shopping and cool restaurant-ing (details to follow), so felt a need to run to the gym to do a quick Zumba class to give those traumatized biking muscles a rest.

Turns out, Zumba class was cancelled, dangit! and who would mosey over but the spin instructor to invite me--personally-- to come to spin instead. WTF??? How could I say no???

My hopes were very low that I'd make it thru the entire class: I was still sore from yesterday's workout, and was tired and hungry-- energy levels low from a long day.

Sigh! So I jumped on the cycle and hoped I wouldn't kill myself. The songs the instructor played were tunes I normally would have sniffed at, not the high energy disco-ey songs I'm used to, but they were perfect, SHE was perfect, a nice change from the 2 other classes I've taken this week.

And you know what??? I DID it!!! I completed the WHOLE class, cranking up the resistance, standing, sitting, sprinting, keeping the RPM's where she wanted them (breaking new speed records for me), hallelujah! I could breathe better, knew mentally what to anticipate, which made it sooo much easier to push through my fear of not being able to keep up, it was amazing, and so much sooner than I thought it would take. Yay, encouragement, so needing this today, right now:-) Slipped a pedal during a sprint, too-- OW! Got a nice purple goose egg forming on my shin; looks great with all the other pedal scrapes and ankle gouges from the Door County trip...

Speaking of encouragement, was able to squeeze into the next size down in jeans today.. not the best, most comfortable look for me (part of the "I can't breathe" collection for fall), but still cool noetheless. Made me feel bad for buying like 7 pairs of jeans that fit (to go with the 7 boobie shirts I bought last week; since the girls are shrinking they would like a wee bit of recognition before they disappear altogether...), but I won't cry if I need to go down to the next size in a few weeks, oh no I won't;-)

Tracey and I also checked out a vegetarian restaurant I've been dying to try: Cafe Manna in Brookfield. What a gorgeous preplanned community! So clean! So new! In spite of Brookfield's almost scary perfection, the Cafe seemed a wee bit less pretentious.. my tofu on a bed of greens with grilled vegetables was tasty and Tracey's portabella sandwich looked good, but always very nice to have another opportunity to see that I can cook circles round those shi shi folks, tee hee (excellent at both vegetarian AND non- sorts of cooking, I guess I just rock that realm, in a "really bad hobby for a dieting girl" sort of way...) Nothing will ever compare to the vegetarian restaurants in Austin, but it was nice to try something a little more local.

Sleepy, sleepy... working a shift and a half tomorrow...

Never Never Never:

Do a spin class, followed by an hour of intense swim aerobics (totally wiped the floor with those gramma's in the class, lol!), with an hour of crazy scuplting afterwards.
Oy!
Girl has felt sapped, I tell you, all day... not sore, just on empty, despite drinking a ton of water and even eating some steel cut oatmeal (=carbs, thought it would give me energy.. it didn't).
But I spose it didn't keep me from mustering the ambition to clear my drawers and closets of **8** bags of clothes, shoes, and whatnot (even blew the great "culling of the holey bras and underwear" event out of the water, which I think was only *3* bags).
So it was a good day, a painful, exhausting day, a day of letting go:

If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go

Bad:

Here I sit on the patio, enjoying the cool fall air, on what would be an otherwise ordinary Sunday, coffee in hand...
...waiting for the dog to barf, again.

Since Grace works at the local custard shop, she has brought more ice cream into the house lately than we've had in all our years combined, and had set a few containers of the richest, darkest, double chocolate-ey chunk stuff on the counter last night to make room in the freezer for more.
So what did I find this morning when I stumbled out of bed??

Chocolate: all over the floor, the counter, the cabinets, the rugs, the couch.. it was like a chocolate massacree had happened while I was sleeping, unaware that such a thing could happen so quietly.
And so, without even missing a beat, I walked into the bathroom, drew up a 5cc syringe of h2o2 and squirted it into Maggie's chocolate smeared mouth.... and waited, and waited...

Success! Fortunately, it was a more pressing need than I thought (and not unlike an archaeological find, if you will...) for contained therein was an entire ball (chewed up into large chunks), 1/2 of a stuffed animal, the entire contents of the cat box, and a fully intact tampon.

Welcome to the life of a displaced country girl! (Or am I a city girl who has been displaced in the county for most of my years? I'm confused)...

It was fun being outside for a change to see something I haven't in a while: people cruising down the highway can catch the briefest glance of our tipi as they pass, and sometimes will pull onto the service road to get a better look... ya gotta wonder what they think when they see it sitting there in the prairie grass, and then see me on my computer looking all nerdy and blogging, and then picking a discheveled tampon out of the dog's mouth (she tried to gulp it back down again, and ate most of the ball before I could stop her...).

Heard this song on the radio this morning, reminded me of something... sure wish I could remember what (tee hee; being forgetful can be entertaining, sortof, cause someday it will remind me of a dog barfing, and I won't remember why exactly...):

p.s. Bono with no shirt on? Hubba hubba! Lost 15# btw, can actually see my waist, my belly is 95% flat, arms getting slimmer... did a spin class on Thursday, and got my booty kicked into next Tuesday, but was encouraged by a very nice class participant who assured me that it takes at least a month to be able to do the whole 45 minutes all the way thru. Don't think I've sweated so much in my ENTIRE life, and wasn't even *doing* it correctly... looking forward to kicking it's butt someday in the near future; it will be quite the accomplishment and confidence builder, and should coincide round about with meeting my weight goal (10# left to lose, +/-, the spin should help me get over the plateau).
Great summer, overall, sad to see it go.. more on that later.

p.s.s. (later): one of my *secret* fave bloggers, JenIG visited my blog! Ooooo, and since she is the very nice Christian gal I have long aspired to be, I quickly scanned the blog and tried to clean it up, much as I would if she had stopped by the house... but instead of throwing the dirty laundry down the basement stairs (and closing the door) and hiding the many piles of clutter in the oven, etc, I was deleting evidence of my potty mouth, much more rampant of late (je m'excuse!).
Oh, and another thing. On the bike trail this am I discovered that there are TWO plaid shirt guys!!! Except this one was heavy set, older, and had a bushy beard. Good thing, too, otherwise I'd never keep them straight....

Sushi!

Funny how things run in streaks, and the strangest things, too. It all started yesterday, with a free moment and an impetuous decision-- well, two impetuous decisions, really.

You see, free moments and myself can be dangerous, landing me and mine in all sorts of folly. In my spare time, I have all sorts of opportunities to plan, scheme, and jump headlong into stuff that sounds like fantastically rational things to do at the moment I decide to do them....

Sooooooooo, after years of planning, researching, talking with people, changing my mind, getting 65 separate informational packets sent, I have enrolled in a Master's program!!! In a couple hour's time, I had spoken with the enrollment coordinator, filed my application, sent for my transcripts, and written a 3 page "Statement of Professional Goals", wheeeeeeeeeee! The program itself is quite unique (and fully accredited, btw), offering one class to complete in an 8 week time period, with completion in two years. I don't know 'bout choo, but doing only one class at a time sounds fan-freakin-tastic, and soo less schizophrenic than the 4-5 classes at a time of programs past. And there's a 10% discount if more than 5 people enroll, and 20% off if 20 + people get on board-- and ya'll know how much I loves me a discount! I should be beginning Oct 20, with books (included in tuition, wtf??) being drop shipped-- did I mention that the entire program is online? Did I mention that I am in love?? Oh yeah! And since the community college I've been adjunct-ing with for years has requested a new contract with me for this semester, one can only speculate a lovely clinical experience teaching there, and an equally sweet lil job a waitin' for me when I graduate (ok, that's projecting something awful, and tempting the fates to boot, so I'll erase those thoughts from my brain).

I also joined the gym today, and quite characteristically forgot to attend classes tonight-- so it's already going swimmingly (no pun intended-- there's no evening swim classes, har de har har).

And since Jacob had a fabulous day at his BRAND, NEW SCHOOL: he not only goes to school with several people he knows in one form or fashion, but made a new friend... oh, and did I mention that unbeknownst to us, his best friend since age 5 unexpectedly decided to enroll!!! Crazy, crazy times, and happy ones for a change. School and my kids are not always on the best terms, god bless their antisocial and antiestablisment lil hearts (lol! really, it kindof bums me out...). Oh, and the dude signed up for violin, too-- and instead of being $80/month, is FREE (me like free).

So, enroll in master's program, good day at school for kiddo... maybe we need to go to HONADA, that new sushi place I've heard a ton about and isn't too far (Kenosha)??? It wasn't hard to get the boy on board, but had to twist a little arm to get the man out the door...I even dressed up for the occasion, which was a little exciting (for me, maybe the man, too;-).
Since I wasn't 100% sure what to get, I figured getting the largest and most obnoxious thing on the menu would be useful, so we were presented with the "Party Boat" (and no, the party boat sushi was NOT wrapped in weed vs the traditional nori, as one sassy person suggested; miso what-was-that-again, btw?)
I've included a photo for your amazement:

The sushi was INCREDIBLE, and we did our best, but couldn't even come close to finishing the monstrosity... so with the leftover fish tonight, I very lightly cooked the stuff up (cause there's no telling what it picked up in our nas-tay fridge overnight, cesspool of spilled stuff and assorted biohazards it is), and made a ton of rolls:And I've even included a RARE photo of moi, all sweaty and unkempt from my toils of sushi making:
After yesterday, I'll let you in on a little secret (so shhhhhhh! don't tell): sooo not really a fan of sushi. I much prefer the rolls, tyvm, vs plain raw fish. Something about an overwhelming ick factor, visions of liver flukes and such (blast! that nursing education and all it's paranoia...), and having to gum a sometimes nasty, gooey bit o raw fish. Cook it the tiniest smidgen of a bit, and I'm on board, 100%.

p.s. even got tomorrow's dinner on the docket: asiago cheese and spinach sausages (a la Sam's club), sliced and served on pita bread with tzatziki sauce, sliced cukes and tomatoes from the garden... happy times to be organized, wonder how long it'll last;-)

p.s.s.: mighty excited about politics these days, looks like our gal is the REAL DEAL, and then some (scroll all the way down to the end of the post).