Friday, October 28, 2011

You Look Tired

It's time to face facts. I need eye cream. Specifically the get rid of dark circles and reduce puffiness kind. Consider the evidence:
  • In the only recent pictures I like of myself I'm wearing sunglasses.
  • I never actually got sick that time I was so happy to blame my dark circles on illness.
  • I've started using concealer under my eyes before going to the gym to teach whether the class is at 6 a.m. or 6 p.m.
  • I've started using concealer under my eyes after evening showers even if I'll be home and only be up for short time before going to bed.
  • There's been a recent run on the "you look tired" comments in my direction. I am tired a lot of the time, but not more so than I've generally been for the last 11 years.
  • I've been scaring the hell out of myself in the mirror with alarming frequency. 
I finally broke the cycle of denial and googled "dark circles under eyes" and wowwie wow wow there is a veritable cornucopia of information. The bad news is my dark circles and puffiness seem likely related to age and loss of collagen or something like that. The good news is that there's no shortage of products for me to throw my $ at and hope they help. There's a lot of really expensive products available and a lot of testimonials to go with them. I will shell out more than seems reasonable for something that works, but am not sure how to determine what will work for me without actually trying the creams. Catch 22, no? 

I clicked some links. I read some reviews. I searched through my drawers and came up with a few tiny sample size eye creams which I promptly slathered under my eyes. Then I went to Target and got Olay Definity Eye Illuminator. It was $23 for .5 FL OZ which is pretty cheap for an eye cream with good reviews as far as I can tell. I'll let you know what I think of it. Unfortunately, I believe it is supposed to take a couple weeks of use before seeing results. You'll be shocked to know, patience is not my strong suit. 


If I don't see results, I will have Scott research what I should use. While he doesn't know bupkis about beauty products, he can research the hell out of anything. He will check endless websites, reviews and message boards. It's a fact that I'll look at a couple of choices (or only one if it's truly fabulous and I know I need it) and make a decision. Scott will look at every choice imaginable, weigh all the options, discuss all the options with whomever will feign interest and then finally make a choice. Eye cream research might not be as exciting as TV, phone, car or vacation research, but I'm sure he'd do it if I asked. Cause he loves me and I did just write that post about how awesome he is and he wouldn't want to sully his image on my blog. 


Peace & Love :-)

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Crazy in Love

I have a friend that is downright giddy these days. She does have a new friend that is obviously contributing to her good mood, but more importantly she has remembered how to love herself. (A friend. Really. This is not a veiled reference to myself. No worries Scott. I mean of course I'm still giddy over Scott, but this is not about me.)


Somewhere along the way her self worth took a back seat to the rest of her life. It was hard to watch. Harder, I'm sure, to live. We have known each other for many years, but I feel as though I've just met the real her. It seems as though she has discovered or perhaps rediscovered her authentic self. Oprah would be so proud!


Cheers to you, Giddy Spa Girl. It's fabulous to meet you!


Peace & Love :-)

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

My Scott Is An Awesome Scott

This morning as he's getting ready for work:


Scott: "Is there a pile of clean underwear hiding somewhere?"


Me: (Seriously contemplating if there could possibly be a pile of his clean underwear somewhere as on occasion clean clothes live in baskets in the laundry room for days on end.) "I don't think so. I remember feeling so proud that I finally got all the clean clothes put away yesterday." 


Scott: "This is my last pair."


Me: "Well I guess I'll either do laundry today or buy you some new ones."


Scott: "Fair enough."


How awesome is that? Seriously! It didn't even seem like he was trying to stifle the urge to say "What is it you do all day while I'm at work and the kids are at school?" He has never once said anything of the sort. 


While at times over the years, I've felt frustrated that he doesn't lavish compliments on me, I will say his easy going personality and ability to go with the flow and not sweat the small stuff is really really fantastic. I've given him ample opportunities to demonstrate frustration and overreact, but I can't remember him taking one. Not that we've never fought, just not about me being a bone head.


Like the time I dropped the lap top and he didn't say out loud what an idiot I was. He laughed, got me us an iPad, and got the laptop fixed.

Then there was the time I booked our vacation for the wrong week and he laughed and poured me another glass of wine. 

Additionally there was the time 13 years ago when I knocked the side mirror off the car as I backed out of my own garage. He laughed then too. Although, I believe he called me a dumb ass while he was laughing. That was less awesome. I think replacing the dumb ass comment with the glass of wine was a move in the right direction.

Also, there was the time when our youngest was 3 months old and we were flying to Mexico on a 6 a.m. flight. We had been dropped off at the airport and I only brought a photocopy of the baby's birth certificate (this was before a passport was required to go to Mexico) instead of a certified copy. I distinctly remember choosing to bring the photocopy so that there was no danger of losing the certified copy. Very flawed logic. A mother with a 3 month old probably shouldn't be allowed to make important decisions like that. They weren't going to let us on the plane. Meanwhile our then 5 y/o started puking. I was ready to lose my shit and Scott calmly worked with the airline people to call a notary to rush to the airport to notarize the photocopied birth certificate and we made the flight. I don't think either of us was laughing until the next day over margaritas, but he never so much as gave me a dirty look about my potentially disastrous blunder.


I'm not really a big hot mess, I just play one here on the blog for your amusement. I'm actually rather competent. Too competent in fact. I really need to stop it. It leads to people asking me to do stuff and high expectations. 



Peace & Love :-)

Monday, October 24, 2011

My Dog Is An Awesome Dog

The other day I mentioned here that my dog, Z, eats cat shit. True story. My mother who, as I eluded to here (see #20) and here (see Turkey section), LOVES LOVES LOVES my dog texted me the following in response:


Mom: "I believe ur last tirade crossed the line of respect regarding Z and ur characterization of her habits (not wine choices) was distasteful"


Me: "I'm pretty sure it's not defamation of character if it's true, but I'll check with my attorney. It does sound a little like you're building a custody case so I probably should contact said attorney in any case."


Mom: "All in jest re: Z"


I totally scared her into backing off with that attorney talk. She doesn't want to lose access to the dog or probably the kids, but the while the kids have school and sports and can't hang out for weeks on end, Z is generally available for extended stays with my parents. We had dogs growing up and while they were cared for, they were not doted on. Z, however, is doted on as is her cousin G (my sister's dog). 


While it's true that Z does eat some gross stuff including cat shit and sometimes has room clearing gas, (those 2 things seem related, no?), and she is kinda a spaz on the leash, and she has chronic ear issues (not her fault) we really did luck out with her. I'm okay with dogs, but am not "a dog person". I DID NOT want a puppy. We were able to get Z from a friend of a friend when she was 4, because Z's previous owners were sadly court ordered to get rid of their dogs. Something about a dug under fence and a neighbor's dead fainting goat. I was never 100% clear on the story, but it doesn't matter. Their loss was our (and I'm including my parents and my siblings here) gain. Z is a fantastic dog. Let me count the ways:


1. She could not be sweeter with the kids.


2. She has a bladder and bowels of steel. She has never, ever had any kind of potty accident. She can be inside for 15+ hours at a time no problem.


3. She is super easy to train. I trained her to chase turkeys out of the yard and come straight back. 


4. She will accompany you wherever you'd like to go. The mailbox? The park? A ride in the car around the block? From the family room to the kitchen? Yes, please!


5. She doesn't run off. In a few isolated incidents she has been inadvertently left out and as soon as we realize it, whether it is in 5 minutes or 5 hours, we find her sitting on the front porch.


6. She will chase the ball as many times as the kids will throw it. She may be exhausted and trying to lay on the ball and hide it, but if one of the kids unearths it and throws it, she will go get it. 

7. She will run right into a creek, river or lake no matter what the temperature, but she steers clear of our pool which means no dog hair to clean out of the pool and also less wet dog smell. Awesome.


40 degree water. No problemo. 
8. She stays downstairs at night even though we are upstairs. Given an invitation she would gladly come up the stairs and get in our bed, but we don't invite her and she doesn't try to come up. 

9. She an excellent broom/mop. We don't give her people food, but she's really good at finding and taking care of spills, dribbles, and piles of crumbs. She often lays under the kids stools while they eat just waiting for the inevitable. She did a fantastic job on the wine spill in the garage. According to my mother, Z even likes coffee. Only when a few drop are accidentally splashed on the floor of course. No one would actually ever pour any extra on the floor for the dog on purpose. Allegedly. 

10. She is beautiful. She should be in commercials. It's true. I'm not just saying that because she is my dog. Just ask my mother.


She could so star in those baked bean ads.


Peace & Love :-)





Friday, October 21, 2011

Fuck it.

I took the "Not for the easily offended" line off my blog's description, because as it turns out I don't actually care if people are offended by what I write. You'll find me insolent or not and you'll keep reading or not. 


If you keep reading, then I hope you're are smiling, chuckling or full on snort laughing. Although I want you to be doing it, I cannot bring myself to type the accepted abbreviation for "laughing out loud", because I hate those 3 little letters strung together. I don't know why. It seems unreasonable I know, but to me it's like nails on a chalkboard. Also "laughing my fucking ass off" or even worse "rolling on the floor laughing my fucking ass off" in their abbreviated forms. Just type ":-D" or "ha" or "funny" or take the time to tap out "that's fucking funny" or something. Anything but ROTFLMFAO. 


I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, my lack of concern regarding my obnoxious, distasteful, abhorrent musings. 


When a new reader happens along, it will not take very long for them to figure out that I think the word fuck is an adverb, a noun, a verb and an interjection. And also that sometimes, possibly, maybe, perhaps, on occasion, I cross a line or two. The sky will not fall. The Rapture will not come. They might even laugh. Because sometimes offensive things are really fucking funny. Plus, as it turns out, in the wide world of blogging, I'm pretty tame.


Peace & Love :-)


Thursday, October 20, 2011

Don't Cry For Me Argentina...

RIP $3.99 La Finca 2010 Malbec from Argentina
The above is what happens when your 5 y/o is trying to be helpful by bringing in the groceries for you and he jumps down from the back of the SUV with the grocery bag in hand and there is wine at the bottom. He wasn't hurt, but he started freaking out because wine was leaking all over the garage floor and he thought he might be in trouble. Lucky for him his mother was willing to make this a calm teaching moment for how to make a different choice when unloading groceries.


We've not tried this wine before and perhaps we've been saved from a terrible fate. It was all of $3.99, the cheaper end of our usual $3.99-$5.99 Trader Joe's wine purchases. I am a bit sad as the $3.99 Sangiovese we've been enjoying lately from Trader Joe's is AWOL and I was hopeful this could be my new lovely, inexpensive wine find. I'll pick up another bottle next time I'm there and we'll give it a try. The dog seemed to enjoy licking it off the garage floor, but she also digs through the litter box and eats cat shit so that isn't actually an indication of if the wine is any good. 


Peace & Love :-)

Monday, October 17, 2011

Slacker

When I haven't posted in a few days or a week or 8 days (but who's counting?) I feel like a slacker. The lack of posting might be because I'm busy or tired or nothing blog worthy is swirling in my head. I find I don't have much success staring at the blank screen and waiting for inspiration to strike. I do better when I let an idea start brewing in my head as I go about my life and wait till I have a beginning or at least some points I want to work in.


Despite that I already know staring at the blank screen is a waste of my time, I was thinking the other day that perhaps I should be more disciplined. Maybe I should set a writing schedule? Maybe I should set a word minimum per day whether or not I post it? Then I remembered I'm not actually a professional writer and a schedule would be stupid. I'm not working on a book. I've never been a journalist. I have produced some extremely well written reports, letters and emails in my time though. Also texts, I have written some really good texts. 


I would gladly babble on a deadline for pay so if anyone from the huffingtonpost.com or aiminglow.com or babble.com reads this and wants to talk just leave a comment and I'll get back to you. I'm not even sure if those websites have to pay for content or if bloggers desperate to get their stuff read gladly provide it for free. Admittedly I would probably do the same for the fame and the glory. 


I would also be available for TV writing. I suspect it helps if you know someone and there's probably a bit of due paying to be done, but it would be pretty fucking awesome to be a writer on Modern Family (hi Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd - one never knows who has a google alert on their name) or on 30 Rock (hi Tina Fey) or even a lesser funny show. Some shows seem like they really could use my help. Psst... Suburgatory (hi Emily Kapnek) I'm talking to you. So many cool actors from some of my favorite HBO and Showtime shows and so much potential for hilarity, but you are falling short. I keep watching and waiting for you to find your groove, but I can't take much more. I did like that you had Billy from Six Feet Under in mom jeans in that one episode and also having Cheryl from Curb Your Enthusiasm in partial dreads while playing tennis without any set up or explanation was kind of fun and quirky, although an actual funny thing tied to it might have made it better. (It's possible I feel asleep for a minute and there was a dread lock explanation/set up, but I actually think there wasn't.)


If I got discovered and offered a real writing gig (not going to happen), I might have to give my real name. I don't do that here because of my children's stalker. True and totally fucked up story. I have never blogged about it, because I just don't think I could make it funny. Honestly, I've never even given it a go, because if I go down that road I get nauseous. Obviously, most of you know who I am as I shameless link all my posts on Facebook, but I do try to keep myself and the kids as ungooglable as possible. See, this is why I don't bring it up. Total mood killer.


I just remembered that I do write a blog for Scott's company. I do this pro bono AKA for free, but I do have the title of Social Media Director and my company emails are automatically signed that way so that's something. The "job" is low key and rarely is there a writing deadline. I did get a really nice spa gift certificate from the owner of the company and that's paymentish so I guess I am a professional writer after all. Still not setting a schedule. By the by, when I explained to my 10 year old daughter what working pro bono meant she deadpanned "Are you sure you're not an intern?" Touche.


Peace & Love :-)

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Can't We All Just Get Along?

Once upon a time in a pretty typical suburban neighborhood lived a family of four. There was the King, the Queen, the Princess and the Prince. For the most part they were a happy family. The Princess and the Prince were quite capable of peaceful interaction, but seemed to find great delight in pushing each others buttons, despite their 5 year age difference, in a valiant effort to finally push the Queen over the edge once and for all. 


One lovely Fall weekend the Princess and the Prince each received invitations to slumber away from home with respective friends. Initially the invitations were for the same evening leaving the King and Queen with a potential childless night. The Queen briefly thought of hosting an adults only soirée at the castle, but then remembered she is rather inept at staying up past 10 p.m. and undoubtedly her friends would want to engage in revelry late into the night. 


As it would happen one of the invitations got modified and the King and Queen ended up having the Prince away on Friday night and the Princess away on Saturday night. This gave a rare opportunity for each child to spend their own time with both parents and it was lovely. On Friday night the Princess and her parents went to Sushi which the Prince is not fond of. Dinner was easy. There were no insults, accusations or fighting. On Saturday afternoon the Prince and his parents walked to get frozen yogurt and then to the park to play. They ordered pizza delivered to the castle for dinner. Again, an easy meal sans bickering. 


It is now Sunday afternoon on the very same fine Fall weekend. The weather is nearly perfect. The King is off mountain bike riding. The Princess has returned home reuniting with the Prince whom she has seen only in passing since Friday afternoon. The Prince and Princess apparently need to make up for lost time as they cannot find a kind word for each other nor can they decide in this castle of many halls to find different rooms to be in. The Queen has conversed, yelled, threatened and punished and is now considering a bottle of wine for herself and a battle to the death for the Prince and Princess.


The End.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Good News, Bad News

Yesterday afternoon I was sooo tired. I had been up since 4:30 a.m. and taught cycling at 6 a.m. which usually has me dragging in the afternoon, but I was more tired than usual. At 1 p.m. I had a grande cappuccino and at 3:15 p.m. I lay down on the couch and took a nap. Well, as much of a nap as one can have with a 5 year old pirate and 10 year old gymnast in the same room. I went to bed early last night and was asleep by 8:30 p.m., slept okay and was up around 6 a.m. per usual and was still dragging. The bags under my eyes this morning were hideous and I made a mental note to Google "best raccoon eye make-up for almost 40 year olds". Having a day to get to, I slapped on some make-up, guzzled extra coffee and went forth, all the while wondering... is this it? Have I hit the wall? Are exhaustion and dark circles the new norm? 


Perhaps a little dramatic for less than 24 hours of exhaustion, but with just a little over 2 months to go until I turn 40, I am sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel like turning 40 is no big deal. Most of the time I look and feel pretty good. 40 is the new 30 or 20 or 28 1/2 or whatever. I vacillate between congratulating myself on such a healthy attitude and worrying that I am completely delusional. What if I have bamboozled myself into thinking I'm in a good place and then some silly little thing sends me over the edge? A few weeks ago I got a hair cut and I kinda wanted to get my long hair cut to my shoulders, but then I thought... what if I don't like it and I have to turn 40 not liking my hair? So, I just got a trim. I'm feeling like the case for delusional is mounting...


Anyhow, a couple of hours ago I noticed a dull ache in my throat and that funny pre-congestion feeling in my head and the lights went on. I'm getting a cold! Yay! Well, yay and yuck all at the same time. I don't have time to be sick (AGAIN!). There's no room on the calendar for it, but at least there's a chance that in a few days I'll go back to being merely sort of tired all the time instead of truly exhausted and I'll be able to ease up on the concealer just a bit.




Peace & Love ;-)