Archives for January 2010

1. The temperatures this morning were cold. Very cold. With the windchill, we were looking at about MINUS SIX. That’s just too cold. I know, I know… it’s winter, it’s Michigan – this is what happens: It gets cold. But, ya know, I don’t really like cold. At all. (As of this writing, we’re sitting at a balmy 13 degrees Farenheit with a windchill of five below). BOO.

2. I decided to keep the KitchenAid mixer in that grey color. I’m glad I did – it’s a nice neutral grey, looks great in my kitchen and it has replaced the breadmaker as my favorite non-essential kitchen appliance (though both are inching their way into the essential column – I use them both frequently). The weirdest thing I have used the mixer for is to mix meat for meatballs (I hate squishing the ingredients together by hand) – but with the mixer, the texture was more consistent throughout and my hands were cleaner. WIN.

3. My bridesmaid dress is in a box in the front seat of my car waiting to be mailed. When I arrived at the post office today, they were closed. I hadn’t realized that post offices could just change their hours willy-nilly, but apparently they can. Jerks. Tomorrow I will mail this dress for the Cinderella Project. This unexpected crimp in my plan to cross this item off my to-do list put me in a tizzy. I may or may not be a little cranky today.

4. Since the post office decided to spit on my plans for the day, I came home and made a grilled peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwich for lunch. To be precise, I only put the chocolate chips on one quarter of the sandwich in case it was gross, in which case I’d still have 3/4 of the sandwich to chow on. BUT, it’s good. I’m sure I win no good nutrition points for my sandwich, but, it made me happy.

5. My sister gave me some samples of shampoo last week. I love the smell of Biolage, so I gratefully accepted her samples. The stuff smells great and my hair feels great, and I’m just going to try to not take it personally that this is the age rejuvenating stuff. Even my shampoo tells me I’m old.

6. The Princess finally started reading the Beverly Cleary Ramona books the other day. I bought them for her last year, and she avoided them until now. Now? She’s tearing through them. She’s gotten through two already this week and is working on her third. I loved Ramona. I’m ready to go start her on Judy Blume (No, NOT Margaret. Not yet.) I think she’d like “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” and “Super Fudge” – and because she’s at an age where she and Pumpkin don’t always get along, she’ll probably love the sibling relationship between Peter and Fudge.

7. I just had a flash to that one scene from “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” where Fudge doesn’t want to eat his corn flakes and his father said, “Eat it or wear it!” and then dumped the cereal on Fudge’s head. What books from your childhood (once you started reading on your own) do you remember most?

8. Last week’s Project Runway confirms for me what many critics are saying (YES, I READ PROJECT RUNWAY CRITIQUES. WHAT?) – that the judges are trying to not boot off the crazy personalities too early, lest the show be left with boring designers (boring designers with TALENT, but boring nonetheless). Because while the losing garment was pretty hideous, I think when you send someone down the runway with their booty unintentionally hanging out, you should be auf’d.

9. JD Salinger has died and I am neutral. I remember liking “Catcher In the Rye” when I was younger, but after re-reading it recently, I was underwhelmed. I remember that I had liked “Franny and Zooey” better – but I have yet to reread it. I just wasn’t a huge fan (and if I can find it, I’ll totally send someone my copy of Catcher, although now that I think about it, I may have already donated it to the library – as I do with ALL books I know I’ll never reread… “Catch-22” I’m looking at you – or I would be if I hadn’t given you away already).

10. I took Pumpkin with me to guitar lesson today. That was an adventure. She did okay, actually – sitting quietly (for the most part) on a piano bench while the teacher taught me bunches of bar chords. And actually, I did okay with the bar chords and after class me and the kiddo went to Costco and ate a bunch of samples of things we’ll never buy. Good time was had by all.

1. My sense of time gets all off kilter when there’s a Monday holiday. The kids were off on Monday for MLK day and since then, I’ve had this warped What day is it today? feeling. But today is THURSDAY.

2. Speaking of Thursday – that also means it’s Project Runway Day. I was actually pretty pleased with last week’s episode. I think they NEEDED to move back to New York. I thought Ping’s garment was hideous and she struck me as someone who will probably annoy me with her eccentricities, but… Hooray for Project Runway! And for Tim Gunn! And for Parsons New School!

3. Today, in case you didn’t know, is National Granola Bar day. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. I am not really a tremendous granola bar fan. I mean, they’re okay, but… Meh. But in honor of this momentous occasion I picked up a (non-sponsored plug) box of Special K Chocolatey-Pretzel Bars. They’re pretty good. It’s hard to screw up chocolate and pretzels. Together.

4. In guitar class today we focused again on the Key of E which involves the wickedly rotten F sharp minor suspended which my teacher had taught me before and which I had previously hated. Still hate it. She taught me a song that I’ve never heard before – with a beautiful guitar part. It’s fun – finger-picking rather than strumming, so it’s a little different, but… Okay.

5. I went to a local coffee chain for a light mocha today. It was gross. Very gross. Gross as in: I dumped most of it out because somethings should just not be lightened. I’m the type who orders coffee with nonfat milk and sugar free stuff. But mochas? They need to be just an all out indulgence because when you take the indulgence out? NOT GOOD.

6. I’ve finally used most of my iTunes gift card from Christmas. Lots of random and some new apps – including the 100 Pushups app. I used to be able to do 100 pushups. I stopped and now I can’t. So, here we go again. There’s also a 200 situp program. That’ll probably be next. Oy.

7. This year Necco Sweethearts conversation hearts have CHANGED THEIR FLAVOR. It’s bad. Instead of the traditional flavors, they are fruity. And they are GROSS. And I’m not happy. The convo hearts are my favorite part of Valentines Day. Sure, Brach’s stuck to their flavor scheme – but Brach’s were inferior to Necco originally and now I’m left with only subpar candy conversation heart options. This is what we call a first world problem.

8. Yesterday as I was tucking Pumpkin in for her nap, I backed into a toy dinosaur – from then, I tried to catch my balance so I wouldn’t fall on a bunch more plastic dinosaurs. In a scene straight out of some bad sitcom, I tried to catch my balance, then reached out to steady myself by grabbing her dresser and somehow yanked my shoulder out of whack and then? Fell on my butt on a sea of dinosaurs. Today my back is sore, but I still laugh when I think about it. After I fell, I said to Pumpkin, “Wow. That hurt.” Her response? “That’s why you shouldn’t do that.” Sigh.

9. I should have squished this one up there with Project Runway but yeah, I’m watching American Idol again. Really – this is my favorite part. I love the bad auditions. I know it’s horrible – but I do. Yes, that’s totally the kind of audition I would do – I’m a passable singer, but I suspect I’m probably – *gasp* – pitchy.

10. As I type, I’m listening to “Whatcha Want” by Beastie Boys. It is making me type faster. Hmmmm. Someone should do a study on this. What music makes you more productive?

1. Hey West Michigan, I see you’ve got some snow coming down. While it is a pleasant change of pace that the weather forecasters were correct in their prediction of a whole buncha snow, the problem is that we’re now left with… a whole bunch of snow. The dude who plows our driveway hasn’t shown up yet – and I really hope he does sometime before the sun comes up tomorrow or else it’s gonna be pretty messy out there.

2. First guitar lesson of 2010 today! I missed it so much. Didn’t learn much, but frankly, I needed a catch up lesson to remind me what on earth I was doing.

3. My BE THE MATCH kit came today for the National Bone Marrow registry. Took mere minutes to swab my cheeks (four times, four diff swabs) and repackage the kit and seal it to return it. SO easy. If you haven’t already signed up, visit marrow.org to do so.

4. I watched the premiere of the new season of The Biggest Loser the other night. This is one of those shows that I don’t watch all the time, and when I do watch, I turn the channel before they vote someone off because that part of it isn’t interesting to me. What is interesting to me is watching the transformation these people go through – both physically and emotionally. Admittedly, I would love to be in a gym getting trained by Bob or Jillian (though personally, I prefer a trainer somewhere in between the two, stylewise. I love to see the first episode though, when they’re puking in the gym and then they hit the scale that first time with double digit losses and they get all excited and weepy and, okay… so it’s possible I take it a little too seriously.

5. I got an iTunes gift card for Christmas. I haven’t used it yet. Crazy, right? I don’t know what I want – I’m actually leaning towards picking up the Reel Director video editing app though – seems kind of neat to be able to do that directly from my phone. Technology makes me giddy.

6. Starbucks has relaunched their reward program – and this new program gets you free refills on brewed coffee, free soy milk, or free flavored syrups. Also a free drink after you’ve bought 15. No, this is not a sponsored post. I just like Starbucks (Hey, Sbux – call me).

7. Currently, I’m reading Up In The Air , the book upon which the George Clooney movie was based. The book itself is pretty good – but man, I have NO desire to see the movie (despite it getting decent reviews). Have you seen the movie? How was it?

8. Lately, I’ve been having prints made of some of the photographs I’ve taken. I just framed a huge picture of Pumpkin and the print of The Princess should arrive soon. Ideally, I’d love to have a complete photo wall someday – but not really sure I have enough wall for all the photos.

9. I made tea this morning on the way to take Pumpkin to school in efforts to keep warm in the cold while driving. It didn’t do much good since I walked out the door without it and it sat cooling on my kitchen counter until I remembered it right around lunch time. Craptastic memory FTL!

10. How’s the weather where you are? I’m hearing some of my southern friends with snow days and chilly unusual weather (for them) – how are you holding up? Yes, I’m asking you about the weather. It’s not AT ALL because I couldn’t think of a tenth thing.