Archives for August 2008

I Love Lists

I love lists – I have a to-do list, a list of books I want to read, a list of places I want to go. In the spirit of Friday random-ness, here are a few lists for you.

Oh So Exciting Things To-Do This Weekend:
1. Recycle all the stuff that I’ve tossed in the recycle bins for the past… three weeks (it’s insane)
2. Be on Mom Duty while Hubby attends the oh-so-crucial Fantasy Football draft
3. Be on Mom Duty while Hubby attends the oh-so-crucial neighborhood testosterone gathering (aka Poker Night)
4. Bake a cake for my grandpa’s birthday

Random Things I Buy in Bulk:
1. Toilet paper (two kids, sometimes three – and one who has no idea of TP “portion control”)
2. Juice boxes
3. Salsa (I use it on everything)
4. Peanut butter

Strangest Things In My Purse:
1. More than one Sharpie (I *love* Sharpies)
2. AA batteries (I was afraid my digital camera batteries would die – so I threw in a fresh pair – which are hardly fresh after two months in my purse)
3. A lime green barrette, which is pointless because Pumpkin doesn’t let me put anything in her hair.
4. The ticket stubs to a concert I went to several months ago.

Strangest Things In My Car:
1. Portable potty seat – Pumpkin is still learning and I take no chances. We never have to drive countless miles to find a potty in a hurry
2. A collection of tops for Coke Zero 20 ounce bottles (a collection = 4 tops)
3. A spare outfit for Pumpkin should she pee all over everything
4. Flashlight

So, top me. Is anyone else nuttier than I am?

Thursday Ten, I Love Cupcakes Edition

1. MH made cupcakes with the kids yesterday and at first I thought to myself, “Chocolate cupcakes. Eh. I can resist chocolate cupcakes.” Clearly what I can not resist is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate chips in it. That spells straight up trouble for me. Must get these things OUT. OF. MY. HOUSE.

2. Project Runway last night. Maybe thoroughly unAmerican of me, but… Brooke Shields? She’s very funny looking. I don’t know what it is about her, but something about her just seems off to me. Having said that, I was surprised to see Kelli get the boot (even with her “slutty, slutty, slutty” outfit) and would have much preferred Blayne-alicious to go. Even if I didn’t think his Bermuda shorts were some hot mess (and they looked cheap to me), he just annoys me.

3. I downloaded some other tunes by Secondhand Serenade this week because I adore the song “Fall For You”. What I discovered? All of his stuff sounds pretty much the same – so you’re safe in just downloading “Fall For You” and skipping the rest of his catalog. Just put “Fall for You” on repeat and pretend you’re listening to the whole album.

4. The stuff with my brother’s health continues to just evolve into more and more of a trainwreck. My parents are having a lot of trouble right now, and my dad will be out next month as they start a new round of taking my brother to specialists in Ann Arbor.

5. Just a few more weeks until school starts! Whoohoo! The older my kids get, the more I see the merits of year round school. Three months off is a bit long for The Princess – she’s such a social creature, it’s hard for her to not have more of her time accounted for. Unfortunately, her friends and their families travel and do the vacation thing a lot – I can’t remember out last family vacation, but I’m sure it was at least a year ago.

6. Staying up too late + getting up with Pumpkin in the middle of the night = my god I am so tired.

7. Are y’all watching the Olympics? Admittedly, I’m not. I’ve caught bits and pieces here and there – and think Michael Phelps is awesome and about got misty eyed hearing LeBron whatever his name is talking about how the US mens’ b-ball team went to one of the swimming events to cheer Phelps on. I thought that was pretty cool.

8. Speaking of Michael Phelps – have you read that he eats 10,000 calories a day? Wow. You know he’s not eating 10K calories of cheesecake a day, like some people I know might do (ahem). Can you imagine?

9. Song I’m listening to on repeat at the moment: “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. Love this song.

10. Note to the guy driving behind me this morning in the bright red midlife crisis mobile: If I couldn’t make it through that light before it turned red, no way YOU were going to make it. So, when I stop for the red light, I would appreciate if you could keep your finger gestures to yourself and realize that when I looked back in my rear view, I could read your lips and saw every word you said (Kiss your mother with that mouth?). I’m sorry you were in such a hurry that the two minutes of sitting at the light obviously threw your whole day off kilter. What I say is this: chill out, and realize my finger works too. Should you ever end up behind me again, I will slow my car waaaaaaaay down and maybe show you a gesture or two. Jerk.

Go Ahead, Be Funny…

You know those times when you have a rough spot, or a not so fun evening and all you wish is that someone would say something funny? Yeah. Well, here’s your chance.

Say something funny. Please.

Sarcasm, something funny that happened to you, blonde jokes, dirty jokes, why did the chicken cross the road jokes – just make me laugh.

No Spartans Were Injured. Not For Lack of Trying.

Late yesterday afternoon, I finally sought directions to the hotel where I was meeting a friend last night. That was when it hit me that I had allowed myself basically 40 minutes to get to a location that Google Maps was saying was 90 minutes away (damn). I’ve found Google to be fairly reliable with regards to mapping (as opposed to Mapquestionable), so I was getting a bit peeved at the classic Sarah move of lack of foresight on the whole dealy-bob. Hubby was then twenty minutes late getting home from work – which fueled my peevishness.

Good news, though, is that once I hit the road and started singing along to the radio (you all had to have known that I’m a radio-sing-alonger, right?) and chatting with my best friend (planning a road trip, no less! WHOO!), I realized that I was making pretty good time and that my 90 minute drive was really more like an hour.

Yeah.

Good times.

Reached the hotel, did the meet up and then headed to downtown for some dinner. Being in a college town does nothing but make me want to move back to a college town. I love the feel of campus towns – and given that fall classes haven’t yet started, the campus didn’t have the tense “OMFG! Life Sucks!” vibe that campuses can sometimes get.

We sat in a Mexican restaurant for a bit – talking about lives, work, husbands, exercise – and I really enjoyed myself (Hi H! Good to see ya!). I dropped her back off at her hotel and I headed home – stopping once to put gas in the car and to go pee, only to find that the gas station had just painted the bathroom and it was not usable. I decided at that point, Oh, I’ll just hold it til I get home. I was successful in that endeavor. Did it make me happy? Um, next time I’ll be finding a rest stop. Lesson learned.

So much of my life revolves around my family – day in and day out, I am putting someone else’s needs above mine. I signed on for that when I became a parent, and I get it and I don’t mind it. Every now and again though, it feels so good to get out on my own and remember that there is something more to me than being a mom, that I have my own merits and things that make me awesome (rather than just fawning over my awesome kids – who are so worth fawning over – they rock). It was good to laugh, to not have my censor on, and quite honestly jamming in the car and not having the radio tuned to Radio Disney? Good stuff.

(But dammit – I forgot to use my Starbucks coupon.)

Thursday Ten, Spartans As Hood Ornaments? Edition

1. I’m meeting someone near Michigan State University tonight. Now, let this be known: I went to University of Michigan. I am a DIEHARD Wolverine fan. I’m not so crazy that I’m going to mow down the Spartans with my car, but if one jumps in front of me, I might not swerve.
Kidding. TOTALLY kidding.

2. I’m crazy envious of all of those families that live in regions where school is starting…now. Three months off for summer? Way too long. The kids are bored, I’m ready to pull my hair out, and frankly, I am a horrible cruise director. I have been probably cranking out subpar work for the past few months because I am struggling to find time to devote to work. Having the mother’s helper has helped a bit – but frankly, she messes up my house or at least doesn’t really deter the kids from messing it up. Her departure makes me start a whole new shift of picking stuff up. Makes me crazy.

3. I had a pretty dreadful few days with a pretty dreadful ear worm. I am happy to report that it is now gone. The work involved in getting it gone was pretty tedious – and involved listening to a lot of music, most of which might have driven me just as bonkers had it actually stuck.

4. When I went to get coffee this morning, I got a coupon to get a grande iced drink for two bucks any time after two p.m. Guess where I’ll be stopping on my way to Lansing? Thanks, Starbucks.

5. Oddest recent download? The theme from “Greatest American Hero”. Go on, laugh but you know you love it.

6. My back feels fine post-bridge (see yesterday’s picture detailing my great flexibility and bendy-girl skills). Whew. Big sigh of relief. I’m not as old as I thought I was. Or at least my body isn’t.

7. I am so sick of cooking. I am so burned out that if I had a bowl of Cheerios for dinner every night for the next week, it would still beat the hell out of cooking.

8. So, Jennifer got auf’d on Project Runway last night. Thank goodness. What in the world was that garment all about? And how did Jerrell and his Bo-Peep outfit not get auf’d? That was some crazy hot mess.

9. And So You Think You Can Dance… I’ve had a hard time getting into it this season, though I’m not sure why. I’d love to see Twitch win, but am doubtful that he will, so my next choice is Katee. I loved her dance to “Mercy” with Twitch, and last night’s “Slow Dancing in A Burning Room” with Joshua (and my goodness do I love that song).

10. My house is a disaster area. The mother’s helper was here yesterday. Pumpkin spilled a glass of milk on the living room carpet. The counters are sticky from The Princess and her popsicle experiment. Guess I better go take care of that.

Don’t Blink

I got bored and changed my template.

I need a prettier one.

A snazzier one.

That will involve research.

But not today.

Fashion Victim

Despite my efforts on my other blog sometimes I am a fashion victim of my own. I am choosing to ignore that, though, because I’m pretty damn impressed that I can still do a bridge. And, y’know, I’ve been hanging in my office all day while the mother’s helper has been hanging with the kids, even though I should have totally been wearing a nude bra with this brown shirt as made painfully obvious in the below picture:
Yeah. Laugh it up. Let me see YOU do a bridge (Seriously, if you can, post a pic and tell me! But just check out your underthangs first!).

NOTE: The text on the picture says “Yoga Fashion Tip: Don’t wear a white bra doing the bridge.”

I Got My Hair Did

(Seriously. I hate that phrase. I’m not sure why everyone says they got their hair “did”, but it completely goes against my every grammatical grain. It just looks funny).

After some debate, I did schedule an appointment for my sister to cut my hair. This would be her first time near my head since the Hair Massacre of 2006. Yes, I’ve allowed her to dye and highlight my hair in the mean time, but scissors? Um, no.

I went last night and had three inches chopped off the ends and right now, still enjoying my post-cut blowout, it’s still pretty damn cute. Once I wash it and it dries curly? We’ll see. It’s short, and I have a little sprouty ponytail going on right now (I got the cut to AVOID the ponytail – what the hell am I doing?!?), but then again, it’s 588 degrees out and I’m folding laundry, so I had to get it out of my way.

I worried for nothing.

I’m adorable.