I'm, like, Totally Rad.

We had 80's day at work last week, so I spent the weekend before it running from Goodwill to Costume Shops to Walmart to prepare for it... (Am I the only one that feels kinda weird going to Goodwill for clothes for a costume? "Excuse me, person shopping for their actual wardrobe... I need that horrible t-shirt to wear to be funny..." Just sayin'... I have seen other people able to find some really cute stuff at Goodwill - mine doesn't have any of that...) We were supposed to have brought in a picture of us from the 80's and then dress in our best 80's look.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.....

Mini-Me

Rockin' it.

My hair ended up crimped shortly after I went inside - a coworker had brought her crimping iron. I even had press-on nails that were like a french manicure, but with a difference fluorescent color on each nail. I rocked my 80's look with no shame - hot pink eye shadow and all.

I even went to the bank and the gas station... With my head held high and my purple skirt bouncing.

True Life: I’m a GENERAL Blogger.

I suppose that pretty much covers me... If there were a category of I’m a RANDOM Blogger, I would feel even more comfortable there...

For anyone new visitors stopping by from Fabulous But Evil or Mrs. Monologue’s blog hops, Welcome. A little about myself and this little hot mess of a blog I write...

I’m -

- 30-something

- married to a great man (J)

- horribly addicted to my best friend (I go through withdrawals if I don’t see her very regularly)

- weird

- entertained by inventing new words (“Is that even a word?” “It came out of my mouth, didn’t it?”)

- a sporadic writer - especially when I have a lot going on... I write to relieve stress, but when I have too much, I disappear a little...

- a lover of lists

- completely random

- a full-time worker, but dreaming of a day when I won’t have to go to an office ever again

- easily irritated

- hopelessly addicted to Diet Coke

- impatient

- funny (at least I make myself laugh)

- ridiculously entertained by watching British or Irish Parliament (or House of Lords) on CSPAN. It’s wonderful. Seriously - watch it. They yell at each other and call each other names... Even the Prime Minister!

- a bookworm - always have been, but having my Kindle has made it even worse because I can take it everywhere with me and when I finish a book, I just download another...

- working on losing weight and getting healthy

- silly

- a home-body

- outgoing and shy at the same time

- no longer embarrassed by pretty much anything (even falling down the stairs in front of my boss... true story...)

- an excellent shooter

- Definitely not normal, because Normal is Boring

So.... Yeah. That’s a bit about me. I started this blog because I’d always loved to write and it was a good way for me to vent or get weird thoughts out of my brain. If I don’t release my randomness or crankiness, it just builds until my brain feels like it’s going to burst... I figure it’s better to do a controlled release of crazy instead of just letting it explode and tear through the city like Godzilla on a rampage...

So please take a look around and enjoy!

Best. Pencil Sharpener. Ever.

That is all.

Our Grand Adventure in NOT Getting a New Couch...

Our couch.... Oh, our couch... It’s done its job for quite some time, but it’s getting progressively more and more horrible... I was never crazy about the light sagey-green color, but it was comfy enough... Until it started to sag. And the cushions lost their comfy smooshiness (it’s a word... I swear.). And the cats decided that the fabric made great scratchy-post-i-ness (also a word) and clawed it down to the wood in places.

I’ve been trying to talk J into getting a new couch, getting this one restuffed and reupholstered, or even just buying those stupid As Seen On TV furniture things to put under the cushions and a slipcover... But none of it has swayed him. He says that he doesn’t want to buy a new couch just to have the cats scratch that one apart too. I tell him that 1. I don’t think they will if we don’t buy one made of a fabric that is just so satisfying to dig their claws into and 2. I CANNOT KEEP SITTING ON THIS STUPID UNCOMFORTABLE COUCH!

I think it was the weekend before last that finally convinced him that it was time... It was a lazy day and we both ended up taking pretty long naps on the couch. And woke up in blinding agony... And then a commercial came on for Living Spaces (if you have one near you and have heard the commercials a million times, you know you just sang it...) all about their “Warehouse Consolidation Sale” with the guy talking with the creepily calm voice... It was all too perfect and J gave in to “if we can find one cheap enough, then we can get a new couch that hopefully the cats won’t claw.” So we made our plan of going and wandering Living Spaces (SING IT!) last Saturday morning after dropping off J’s truck for service.

Saying we were overwhelmed would be a drastic understatement. There are just SO MANY COUCHES! You’d think it would be simple to find a standard sectional without a triangle corner piece that makes it extra huge... But no....... Apparently the trend right now is to have the biggest sofa you can possibly find... Extra large cushions, giant triangle corner piece, a minimum of two recliners, arm rests, cup holders, a chaise, and an ottoman bigger than my dining room table! And as much as I would love a room FULL of sofa... It's just not logical. We looked at and sat on way too many couches... We felt fabric samples and J told me that I absolutely could not get the long-haired faux fur fabric... (Dream killer...)

We narrowed it down to two couches - his pick and mine: 

  Not exactly his couch, but similar enough...

 

My couch... In all its glory...

His was a dark brown leather two seat by two seat sectional with a recliner on each end. I pointed out quickly that if it went in the room the way the couch is now, we would both be sitting on one side of the couch squished together and I would be the only one that would get a recliner because that’s MY seat!

He proceeded to try to create various scenarios to make the couch fit and have both recliners be useful... We even went home for a while so that he could bust out his stuff from architecture classes and make a scale drawing of the room complete with cutouts of the current furniture in the room that he could move around... Because that’s what you do. Obviously.

He then took the drawing back to the store, measured the couch, and created a to-scale cutout of the couch he wanted. Believe me when I tell you that there is NO WAY that this couch was going to fit in our house, have both recliners usable comfortably for tv watching purposes, and not be totally annoyingly in the way somewhere... But he was determined. I am still catching him playing with his little faux room - trying to figure out a way to make it work.

Unfortunately our living is set up in the crappiest way possible with hallway access, an angled wall where the fireplace is (which we NEVER use... Seriously - we blocked it off. That’s how much we don’t use it), kitchen access, and where the front door is... It doesn’t leave many options...

 Vague representation of the room - using nothing but Word..... Pretty much guaranteed not to be to scale...

MY couch? It was so simple. Three seat by two seat dark brown leather sectional in the configuration it would need to be to fit where the current one is... AND it was $6 cheaper than his couch... Just sayin’... The only things? The arm is a bit high, so no more lounging with my arm propped on the arm of the couch... (Who cares?) and the “two” side is technically a chaise, so there is only a cushion on the back for one of the seats and no arm on that end. Now, I didn’t see this as such a big problem because that side would be up against a wall and we could just buy a really pretty comfy pillow to put there and BAM done. But no. J thought it was just too stupid for words that they would want it to be a chaise so badly that they couldn’t just put a back and a cushion for every seat on the couch.

So he immediately wrote mine off... And I did the same to his. So no new couch. After HOURS of looking and sitting and measuring and walking and sitting and lounging and measuring and..... SIGH. Same. Stupid. Green. Torn Up. Uncomfortable. Couch. Ugh.

Now we have to try other places...

All I want is a dark brown sectional!! Preferably made from soft leather!

I’m goin’ on Amazon....... They have everything........

Randomness...

- J has been working nights... Oh - and days too. It sucks. I get to see him for about an hour or two every night between when I get home and when he leaves again... And most of the time he gets back home before I leave for work in the morning... He doesn’t work full days at work - just enough time to get things prepped for the night jobs... It seriously sucks. The two worst things are: 1. He is pretty much incapable of sleeping during the day so he doesn’t get much sleep all week and 2. I stay up too late and sleep like crap when he’s not there and then I don’t get much sleep all week either.

Needless to say (which apparently means NOTHING because people always follow that up with what they were going to say anyway.... Yes, I just irritated myself...) that by the time the weekend rolls around we are both grumpy. At least it’s only going on until SEPTEMBER! I don’t know if we can take another month and a half of this... SIGH

And it's been making me slack off on all of my "social networking" because the last thing I want to do with my small amount of time with him is stare at my computer.... But I miss being up to date on everyone and updating my little blog here, so I'm trying to get back on top of it all...

- We went out on our friend’s boat and had a lovely time. I even jumped in open ocean... With sharks and creatures and not being able to see or touch the bottom or anything... It was super cold and I pretty much only did it for the picture and to say that I did...

 I may or may not vaguely be drowning J... It's hard to tread water while posing for a picture...

We found a Michael Jackson impersonator while we were in Long Beach for lunch... Dude had on so much makeup that everyone who saw the pictures thought it was a statue...

- My body hurts more from the first three days of my new workout than they did from the entire 9 weeks of my previous workout... I had been wanting to try P90X for a while, but didn’t want to shell out the money for it... J has been trying to get himself motivated to work out again and decided that he wanted to try it, so we got it. Unfortunately with him working weird hours, we can’t work out together like we had originally planned, but I didn’t want to keep putting it off. Now I will work out while he is taking his “before work nap” after I get home... And he can work out whenever he feels like it... haha

I don’t know how “ripped” I’m gonna get, but I am most definitely feeling it after three workouts... I like that it’s really your own pace... “Chest and Back” was basically a ton of pull-ups (I do a modified version using bands since we don’t have a pull-up bar in our living room...) and push-ups. Next was “Plyometrics” or “Jump Training” and then “Arms and Shoulders...” Today is going to be Yoga. And for each part of the exercises, you just do as many as you can... And then try to do more next time...

But I seriously can’t lift my arms right now.... And the stretching in yoga is either gonna feel really good or it’s going to really hurt. Or both.....

- Oh - and BTW - I had already lost 24 pounds from the previous 30-Day Shredding and EA Active-ing... I have found that there is not much that can instantly brighten my day as quickly as fitting into a smaller size of pants...

- But I felt REALLY lame when a guy in one of the workouts with a prosthetic half leg was doing WAY better than me on some of the exercises... Oh well... I’ll get there.

- Finally tried a frozen yogurt place by my bff’s house that may very well be a rival for Yogurtland and Cherry on Top for me... They have this amazingly delicious Black Cherry Tart... And their toppings are awesome... My favorites are the cut up Rice Krispie Treats and cut up Ho-hos... SO yummy. I can’t believe we didn’t go try it out sooner!

- True Blood is back and “lost little Eric” is cracking me up... I am definitely not upset to see an “Eric-heavy” season... Just sayin’... I love me some Eric Northman. Plus, Alexander Skarsgard might someday be my best friend...

- J and I bought Vibram FiveFingers... I got the women’s Bikila LS. I can’t remember what J’s are called. We have a lot of friends that swear by these shoes for running, walking, jogging, hiking... So we decided to give them a try. I was a lot more wary of them because I am generally disgusted by toe socks and feet... They are actually surprisingly comfortable.

I bought them at REI specifically because REI has such a good return policy. If I end up absolutely hating them, I can take them back... They seemed to be good during my workouts...

- I bought a cowboy hat... A second thing that I never thought I would purchase... But I am really pale and burn really easily, so I decided that I needed a nice hat with a wide brim to help protect my fragile skin... I like it; I think I picked a pretty good one...

- I finally met my new boss... He was in one day that I had taken a vacation day and then wasn’t in again for two weeks... Seems like a nice guy - although, I have only spoken to him for 10 seconds so far...

- I bought “Alice, The Madness Returns” for my PS3... It’s a creepy, twisted, and entertaining take on the old Alice in Wonderland story line... It’s a very pretty game and fun to play. And her costumes are AWESOME. I so want to go as her for Halloween, but I don’t think anyone would get it...

 Image from here.

- I’ve been entertaining myself by playing with the Zombiebooth app for my phone... You take a picture of yourself (or someone else) and it turns them into a zombie. I didn't even have to make an angry face - it did it for me... And it moves around and growls and screams... SUPER creepy. My bff has told me that I cannot send any more because they really scare her... Maybe I’ll do my makeup like one of the zombie pictures for Halloween instead...

 If I ever actually look like this, I fully expect J to put two bullets right between my eyes... I would do the same for him...

- I love my new Harvey’sSeatbelt Bag... They had a sale and a bag that I had been wanting (but not wanting to spend that much money on) was 50% off! I was legally REQUIRED to purchase it... Plus, I needed a new briefcase for work, and it is the perfect size... And look how pretty it looks with Lola...

 

- I found jellies at my grocery store! I feel like a little kid again when I put them on... They make me smile. I’m going to go get more colors! For $2, how can you not??

 

- I saw a little girl - couldn’t have been more than 8 years old - at the store the other day with her parents... She was wearing short shorts, an off-both-shoulders top with chain straps on her shoulders, and knee-high Converse... It was totally the uniform of the “Prostitot”. And TOTALLY not right... Why do parents let their young children dress like that? They are the ones that purchase the clothing and have the final say, right?

- I got a new water bottle that I think is really cool and I like it a lot... Kinda lame to get excited about a water bottle, but what can you do? Ha

 LifeFactory 22 Ounce Glass Water Bottle - I got mine on Amazon.

- I am both extremely excited and extremely sad about the last Harry Potter movie... It looks SO good, but it’s the last one!!!!!!! I get chills when I see certain parts of the previews for the last one. I’m not planning on going to the midnight premiere or even going this weekend... I like to wait until it calms down a little bit so that I don’t have to be crammed into a too-full movie theater with noisy, rude people... I want to be able to enjoy the movie...

- It’s rainy and cool today and it makes me wish I could have spent the whole day cuddling on my couch...

- I bring Lean Cuisines for lunch most days and they have this points rewards program thing right now... I ordered really cute salt and pepper shakers...

 Photo from here.

- I saw the pilot episode of a new show called “Alphas” on SyFy. As much as the way they chose to shorten their network name irritates me, the show looks like it’s going to be really good... It’s about a group of people that have special powers and how they deal with them and the repercussions while also solving crimes... 

So there I am... All of my current randomness rolled into one neat package... :-)

Why Am I So Tired??

This is a question that I ask myself more often than not.... And I think I’ve ruled out the possibilities...

- Not because I have to get up at 6 in the morning to get ready for work Monday through Friday... (And am not a morning person...)

- Not because I leave my house by 7:25 a.m. and then don’t see it again until 5:25 p.m.

- Not because I spend an hour every night getting my butt kicked by EA Active 2...

 (and end up looking vaguely like this afterwards - bright red and sweaty...)

- Not because I then don’t get to eat dinner until closer to 7... And have to shower because I’m all gross from the workout... And want to chat with J to catch up on our days... And want to watch my favorite shows...

- Not because when I finally drag myself to my bedroom, I still have to take my vitamins, get stuff ready for the next day, set the alarm.... before I can curl up under the covers...

- Not because on nights when J comes to bed at the same time as me, I have to have my minimum half-hour of snuggle time to just relax and unwind in his arms before I push him away, roll over, and spread out because I can’t actually sleep like that... Seriously. I would burst into flames... I run way to hot at night to be squished close together with blankets on...

- Not because on some nights when he comes to bed at the same time as me and I have already gotten my snuggle time and rolled away, something that amuses me will pop into my head and I will randomly become a chatterbug and get him talking too and we will talk about ridiculous things and giggle like children having a sleep-over...

- Not because on nights when he stays up later than me, I take advantage of my lighted Kindle cover and read read read read read read.... “Just one more chapter!!” “Crap.... that chapter was a total cliff-hanger... Just THIS one more chapter......”

- Not because on nights when he stays up later than me and I force myself to leave my Kindle in another room, I end up watching tv or playing a game on my phone until it gets much later than I wanted it to...

- Not because on nights when he comes to bed later than me, he somehow makes as much noise as is humanly possible while coming to bed and wakes me back up if I was lucky enough to already by snoozing...

- Not because the kitty-cats think it’s funny to have screaming death-matches at 4:30 in the morning... Which require me to have to get up out of bed to put a stop to...

- Not because the same kitty-cats (mostly the girl one) think that it is funny to throw up in the middle of the night...

- Not because on Friday and Saturday night we end up completely losing track of time while hanging out with my best friend and her husband... Nothing makes time disappear faster than getting dinner, watching funny shows, laughing hysterically about the stupidest possible things (seriously - our shadows can make us laugh harder than almost anything...), swimming, playing cards, playing video games, sitting in the hot tub, going to Yogurtland, playing with their dogs..... Suddenly you wonder why your eyes are burning, look at the clock, and it’s 1:00 a.m.

- Not because I am quickly losing my ability to sleep in ALL day on Saturday... Once I get vaguely around 8 hours of sleep, I’m up... Plus, the day just feels so wasted when I sleep half of it away...

- Not because our friends just had their first baby and we love going over to see them and him...

 (I mean... The wee baby Jackson? Too adorable for words...)

- Not because we’ve had birthday parties and pool parties and hiking and off-roading days and dinners and work to do on our camper and things that have to get done around the house and have been too busy to just sit and relax and read or write....

- Definitely not because I turned 31 back on May 25th...

- Not because I am highly entertained by wasting time making photos of me look like those WAY over-photo-shopped Facebook pictures that people post... The ones where you can’t even really tell what they look like anymore... And they are usually from a weird angle... And then spend more time texting them to my friends who know who I am making fun of... And then hilarity ensues....

"What you should know about me is that I’m very dramatic and just have this.... 'inner glow' that people find oh-so attractive....."

- Not because I have a tendency to drink two liters of water after I get home - in addition to the smaller water bottles and diet coke I drink at work and therefore have to pee a bazillion times...

- Not because there is something going around my office that is trying to catch me... I just don’t have time to be sick... And this whole “not being able to breathe” “do I have a fever or not” crap is getting REALLY old.

Or............. Wait. Maybe those are all the exact reasons that I’m always tired... Who knows? My brain is too tired to figure it out...

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder... And almost gives me ulcers....

I got to go out of town for a work event. I had extremely mixed feelings about this... I was excited to go because it was going to be at a really pretty resort and there would be all sorts of fun activities and delicious food. I was having major irrational anxiety about the fact that I couldn’t bring J... It’s not often that we are apart for long periods of time. He’s had to travel for work a couple times, but somehow that’s not as bad for me because I am home in my comfort zone...

It’s not like we don’t do anything without each other - I go to hang out with my friends and go shopping without him regularly... He goes to play poker with old coworkers/friends every so often. It’s just weird to be apart. This time was especially hard for some reason - I spent the week or two before it with my stomach in knots every time I even thought about it. It was even harder on him this time - he even admitted to not being able to sleep the whole time I was gone.

He had taken the Monday and Tuesday off while I was gone to do some stuff around the house... He cleaned and organized the garage, installed new shower doors in the master bathroom, and organized the office and music room. The organizing was all in preparation for getting new windows (FINALLY). Last year was new roof, this year - tankless water heater and windows.

So Monday, I had to head out early to meet up with Girl Boss and another co-worker to carpool. I made it out of the house on time with minimal tears - I have become such a GIRL! I never used to cry easily... Now all it takes is a stupid heartfelt moment on Glee or something like that and my eyes start burning... haha

We made it to the event, got checked into our rooms - I had a cute little balcony off of my room with a little man-made river running by. The room was pretty standard, but nice... (Although a little odd that there wasn’t a full-length mirror anywhere....) 

 The view from across the lobby

My room

My view from my balcony

That night’s dinner was Fleming’s steakhouse. I had a delicious filet that was so massive I couldn’t finish it. I went back and socialized around the fire pit with everyone just long enough to show that I was there and then slipped back to my room where I read my Kindle until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

Tuesday was the main day where we went to a racing school to drive and ride in some cars. I spent my morning reading and lounging in my room. I went downstairs and had late breakfast / early lunch in one of the hotel restaurants - I had a burger with goat cheese on it. SO yum.

The driving was a blast - first we got to drive Corvettes through a track that they had set up to see who could get the fastest time. I was a couple seconds behind the fastest times, but at least I wasn’t the slowest... haha

 

Then they took us over to the “skid pad” and put us in Cadillacs that were outfitted with what are basically hydraulic training wheels. Using the hydraulics, they could raise the back end of the car to force you into skidding out. Our task was to get the car back under control... I was excited about this because I (KNOCK ON WOOD) have never been in a car that was skidding out of control... I thought it would be cool to see how it felt. I have to brag a little - I was the only person that never lost control of the car and spun out completely. I did have my instructor telling me that I was giving it more than enough gas - that it was about getting under control, not drifting... HA But it was fun!

 You can kind of see the little training wheels...

Next up were hot laps around their real track in super fast Corvettes with a professional driver. This. Was. Awesome. My driver was crazy - he would drift around the entire hairpin and was going 110 - 125 on the straightaway. I actually got one extra lap because there was a car there (someone that was actually taking the course...) that got in our way and messed up the full speed lap. I could have stayed in that car until it ran out of gas. I very nearly disappeared back inside to get a different helmet and go again... haha 

This shows a little bit of the cars going around the track... The speed on the straightaway and flying out of the pit does not come across as well as I hoped - it was FAST.

It was a perfect day... The clouds looked like a movie backdrop...

That night dinner was back at the hotel in their “fancier” restaurant. I had a heirloom tomato and goat cheese salad, a bison steak (so delicious), and goat’s milk ice cream with goat cheese in it over Indian fry bread. Have I ever mentioned my more-than-slight obsession with goat cheese? It’s out of control. After having the goat milk ice cream, I immediately researched and found companies that make it and stores that carry it. It’s really good... Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of my food - I was way too interested in eating it!

 But I did get a beautiful picture of the sunset...

The next morning was time to go home! I was so happy to be home and we both we finally able to actually get some sleep.

And then this past weekend we spent the entire weekend lounging and relaxing. We ran a couple errands and J decided that he was going to make one of his gourmet dinners... He decided on duck. He didn’t want to do the usual orange sauce/glaze for it and decided instead to do a pomegranate brine overnight and then a pomegranate glaze. It turned out ridiculously delicious.

 The duck - all sad and pathetic... waiting to be cooked

It's done!

He even loves to present the food in pretty ways... So delicious - the tartness of the pomegranate worked perfectly with the sweetness of the duck...

I love when he gets in the mood to really cook - he’s so good at it.

So how have you been?