Tuesday, August 31, 2010

another new beginning

so today . . . is my last day of summer vacation. i am sad.

usually by the time school starts in the fall, i am feeling ready to go back to work. usually i have spent my summer doing projects. usually i've spent a lot of time alone, recharging.

this summer, none of those things have happened. i am not ready to go back.

but tomorrow i go back to work anyway. in a different classroom. for the third year in a row. i haven't been able to get into the new classroom yet, so it is not ready. i have never started a school year in this state of chaos! but it is what it is, and it will be ok. i just have relax and do what i can do, and then not worry about it. the kids in my class will be fine. and in a couple of weeks we will be up to speed.

BUT...

now that school is starting again, i do need to make some changes to my summer lifestyle. none of these are earth-shattering, and if you have read my blog for very long, you have heard me mention these things before. because i talk big, but when it comes to actually making lifestyle changes, i am a wimp. and yet, if i am going to survive the next nine months until summer vacation 2011, these things have to happen.

1--i HAVE to go to bed earlier! i am a night owl. i can easily stay up until 2 a.m. and then wake up at 10 a.m. the next morning and feel pretty good. but if i go to bed at 11 p.m. and get up at 7 a.m. i feel tired. it is still 8 hours of sleep, but it is a different 8 hours. the problem isn't the amount of sleep i get, it is having to get up at 7 a.m.! i am just a zombie at that time of the morning. ask rollie, my morning person husband. he has learned to pretty much ignore me until i come downstairs on my way out the door. but when i am working, i can't sleep until 10:00! so, whether i am tired or not, i am going to have to go to bed by 11:00. which means i am going to have to plan to go to bed by 10:00--because once i head that direction, i always seem to find a hundred little things i have to do...

2--i HAVE to walk the dogs. i am going to start doing this again. really. i am! (rollie is rolling his eyes as he reads this. he has heard me say this so many times before, that he never really believes it--even if he sees me walk out the door with a dog on a leash. i think he thinks i just walk around the corner, sit on the curb for 45 minutes, and then come back.) i am going to do this because i need the exercise, and i failed at being a gym rat. i am going to do this because the dogs need the exercise--milo is an 18 pound roly-poly, even though i now feed him diet dog food! and while mia is still her sleek and beautiful self, she has enough energy to power several four year olds. so we need to get out there. next week. really.

3--i HAVE to drink more water, less soda. i know, you have heard me say this so many times, but i just like soda and i get tired of water. i was going to work on this during the summer, but it didn't happen. i did make sun tea, so that i would have an alternative to soda. but once again, i left it outside for a few days, and then on the kitchen counter for several more, until it got moldy... but i think i will be more successful when i am spending most of my day at school. i have water in my classroom, but not soda--unless i bring some from home. so i expect that in a few months, i will have this one under control :) of course, i have thought that before, so we will see...

4--i HAVE to read more. i am busy during the day at school. and when i have a few free moments, i have kind of fallen into the trap of spending them on facebook. but i love to read! and now that i have a kindle, there is no excuse--i will always have several books with me!! i love my computer, and facebook, and the internet, but books engage my mind. and my poor mind needs something...

today, i didn't read, i didn't walk the dogs, and i drank soda all day--no water. BUT it is only 10:30, so if i stop writing right now and head to bed and don't get sidetracked by more than a couple of things, i think i might at least be able to accomplish one of my goals.

i'll keep you posted on the rest of them...

Monday, August 30, 2010

thwarted. twice.

so today . . . i've decided that maybe some things were just not meant to be.

all summer i have watched as an out-of-business restaurant underwent a transformation. it was a restaurant i had never eaten at--which is probably why it went out of business--but i drove past it every time i went to subway. and about a month ago i noticed the sign...the sign that said "coming soon! 99 cent store!" (have you noticed computers don't have the cent sign anymore? i find that odd.) i was so excited! i loooove the 99 cent store, but the nearest one is about 3 miles away, so i don't go there very often. it is just too far off my beaten path. (yes, i am spoiled. i live in the perfect place. i can walk to the post office, the mall, my school, a park, burlington coat factory, chuck e. cheese, my bank, and jack-in-the-box. not that i do, but if there is another gasoline crisis, i am golden!!) every time i go there, i come out with lots and lots of stuff, and i think to myself, "why don't i go there more often?"

and now i can.

now i can, because this new 99 cent store just opened up down the street from me. i watched the remodeling. i counted the days until the grand opening. i missed the grand opening.

and then last week, i needed emergency dog leashes. i didn't want to spend a lot, because i just knew the good leashes would eventually turn up (which they did,) but i needed some for the weekend. so where to go? the 99 cent store of course. diandra went with me, and while i was discovering that they didn't have any dog leashes, she was stocking up on picture frames. so i left empty-handed, and diandra had a bag full of stuff (this keeps happening to us!!) but it was ok. we were in a hurry, and so i didn't really have time to look around. i am sure it is going to be a gold mine of stuff for school. and if i need some household thing, it is just down the street...

tonight as rollie and i were on our way to subway, we approached the new store. i said, "i need a dish drainer. can we stop for just a minute at the 99 cent store?"

i need a dish drainer, because i am going back to washing our dishes by hand. there is some sort of dishwasher demon in our house. we even got a new dishwasher, but the dishes still come out unclean. i am sure it would help if i would wash them before putting them in, but really what is the point of using a dishwasher if you have to wash the dishes first?!?!?! i just refuse to do it. if i am going to have to wash them, i am just going to do it, let them dry, and then put them away. although, now that i am writing this, i am thinking maybe i could go ahead and wash the dishes and then let them dry in the dishwasher. it would be like a giant dish drainer...

...except i can't do that right now, because my ineffective dishwasher is full of my crystal and china--in case of earthquake...

anyway, we went in to the 99 cent store, and i headed for the kitchen plastics. a quick look told me that they didn't carry dish drainers, but i couldn't believe it, so i looked again. and again.

albert einstein is calling me crazy...

i finally acknowledged that the 99 cent store did not carry dish drainers. i was going to have to go to target or walmart, (because i hadn't had the brilliant "use the dishwasher as a dish drainer" idea yet,) and was ready to continue on to subway.

but first i had to retrieve rollie. i thought he would probably be pacing by the front door, waiting for me to be done. but he wasn't by the door. thankfully he is usually the tallest person in a crowd, and thankfully the shelves are short at the 99 cent store. so all i had to do was look around for his head and then move in that direction. i found him by the tools. "here," he said, "you need one of these." i looked to see what he had, and saw a rubber mallet. really. a rubber mallet. i could not possibly imagine any reason why i would need a rubber mallet--not even for 99 cents. "no, i am pretty sure i don't need a rubber mallet," i said. i was ready to go to subway. i was getting hungrier by the second. and i know it was my idea to stop at the 99 cent store, but i was done now--it was time to go!

but we didn't go. he moved slowly on to the car stuff. "oh, look at this!" he said. i looked. now he had some sort of car detailing spray. i looked at the spray. i looked at him. he looked happy! all i could think was, "yes, you are happy now, because that spray is only 99 cents! but if you spray that stuff on your car--the one you clean every day when you put it in the garage--and it makes the paint dull or cloudy, you are going to be one very unhappy guy..."

"maybe you should try that in an inconspicuous place on my car first. my car already has a dent in it..." i graciously (and a bit impatiently) offered.

i don't think he heard me. he continued looking at the car stuff. i wandered off, hoping i wouldn't faint from hunger before he got done shopping. pretty soon he came to see what i was looking at. i was looking at cheap drinking glasses--because you can never have too many glasses. he looked at me like, "we already have glasses. why are you looking at those?" we wandered around for a little while longer, until we realized that i was waiting for him to be done and he was waiting for me to be done, when actually we had both already been done for several minutes!

and that is how i found myself once again leaving the 99 cent store empty handed, while the person who was with me left with treasure...

rollie's joy was short-lived however. his total had come to $1.10. "are we paying 11% sales tax now?!?!?!" he asked. "no," i said, "it is just 10%..." (yes, go ahead and gasp! but then remember that the sun always shines here. and we have disneyland!) "but my total was $1.10--that would be 11 cents sales tax." i did the math and then said, "well, that would be true if your car detailing spray had only cost 99 cents. but clearly you weren't listening to the propaganda they were playing over their speaker system. apparently everything in the 99 cent store actually costs 99.99 cents." "but that's a dollar," he said. "i thought this was the 99 cent store."

well, i can see why he thought that. that is what the sign on the store said. that is what all the signs in the store said. but apparently it is not. apparently it is the 99.99 cent store.

which only matters if you can find something to buy...

Saturday, August 28, 2010

"let them eat...bagels?"

so today . . . my breakfast bagel had a marie antoinette moment. and then i ate it.

i love bagels! the flavor, the texture, the cream cheese... but they don't really fit in very well with this low carb healthy eating routine i say that i do :) so rather than eat the chewy goodness of a plain bagel, or the delicious onion-y flavor of an everything bagel, i eat 100% whole grain mini bagels--yes mini bagels--and i usually only eat one at a time. for breakfast. i guess i've adjusted to this whole healthy eating thing.

but a couple of days ago diandra came to costco with me. diandra + costco = food that i don't usually buy. i was zipping right past the bagels, when these delectable goodies caught her eye. "ooo, look mom! everything bagels!!" that is her favorite kind. "uh huh," i replied, trying to make my way past the third level of hell (which costco calls the bakery,) before anything made with white flour could jump uninvited into my cart. she pulled a plastic bag off the roll. "and look! we can get 2 bags for $5! i can get these everything bagels and you can have these honey wheat ones." she is under the impression that if the label says 'wheat' then i will eat it--she totally ignored the 'honey' part...which is just another way of saying 'sugar.' but by then, she was already bagging them up, and saying, "i'll buy them." so what could i do?!?

besides, now that the contraband is in the house, i can eat it :)

then last night we were watching tv, and diandra got hungry. "you have bagels from costco," i reminded her. her face lit up, and soon she was back with her snack. she took one bite and made a face--and it wasn't an "oh this is the most delicious food i have ever eaten" face. it was a "what the heck is this?!?!?!" face.

"this is not an everything bagel," she said. "but it is covered with all those seeds!" i said. "i know," she said, "but it does not taste like an everything bagel..."

i could tell she didn't really like it. and now there i was with a bag of five more of them, white flour and all. i was probably going to have to 'take one for the team,' and eat them.

so this morning, i thought i would just get it over with and eat one--even though they are gigantic! well, at least they seem gigantic to me, since i usually eat those tiny little mini bagels. i pulled a plump, savory, white bagel out of the package. i got out the cream cheese (because i read somewhere that if you are going to eat bad carbs, you should eat them with some protein or fat. i can't remember if it said protein OR fat, but i love cream cheese, so i went with the fat.) i got out a knife and prepared to slather the killer bagel with cream cheesy goodness.

and then, i encountered a problem...

...because the bagel wasn't sliced. i hate that!! i simply cannot slice a bagel properly. one half is always thicker than the other. or one edge will be thick and the other one will be thin. and since it is round, i have to hold it in my hand to slice it, which increases my chances of cutting myself by about 10,000%!

and then i remembered that we have a bagel guillotine!

yes!! a bagel guillotine!! i first encountered one of these wonderful devices when we were on vacation one year. we stayed at a motel that had a really nice complementary breakfast, and they had a bagel guillotine. i thought it was so cool!! i sliced up bagels for anyone who would let me. i wanted one!!!! but i could never find one in a store.

then, a few years ago diandra was getting ready to move out of our house. and i discovered that bed, bath, and beyond had bagel guillotines. "you have GOT to get one of these!!" i said, apparently somewhat forcefully. so she got one. and then when she moved back home, the bagel guillotine moved back with her :) i put it in a kitchen cupboard and promply forgot about it...because those 100% whole grain mini bagels that i usually eat are pre-sliced.

but this morning, as i stood there with my big, fat, chewy unsliced bagel in my hand, i remembered the guillotine. i got it out, put it on the counter, placed my bagel into the slot, and with one smooth motion i had a perfectly sliced bagel. which i quickly slathered with cream cheese. and then i ate it!

diandra will be moving out of our house again when she gets married next year. but i am thinking the bagel guillotine will not go with her. i am thinking that the bagel guillotine now belongs to me...

...even if i have to temporarily "forget" where i keep it :)

Friday, August 27, 2010

if it isn't jeans, it is glasses...

so today . . . diandra got glasses.

when she was a teenager, the most dreaded words for me to hear were, "i need a pair of jeans." because what she meant was, "you need to come to the mall with me while we go into every store that carries denim, and i try on every pair of jeans ever made, in 2 or 3 sizes, until we find a pair that is comfortable, looks good, and doesn't cost $100. and the $100 part might be negotiable if they meet the other two criteria."

it was not my idea of fun. it meant an afternoon of endless dressing rooms, occasional tears, repeated trips out of the dressing rooms to find different sizes, arguments about whether i would ever let her wear them out of the house, more tears, until finally, hopefully we would leave the mall triumphantly with a shopping bag containing one. pair. of. jeans. so a couple of days ago when diandra announced that she thought she might need glasses, i thought i might need some valium...

diandra gets headaches. frequently. i have been telling her for the last few years that i think she needs glasses. i wear glasses. rollie wears glasses. all four of her grandparents wear glasses. and she spends a lot of time in front of a computer or with her nose in a book. so it just seemed to me that there was likely a connection between her headaches and her probable lack of 20/20 vision...

but diandra didn't want to wear glasses. until a couple of days ago. a couple of days ago she said to me, "i think maybe i need glasses. i keep getting these headaches."

what?!?!!? really??? how many times have i said that to her?!?!?! probably 50 times!! and every time i say, "maybe you need glasses," or "if you had glasses you might not get so many headaches," she very emphatically says, "no, i'm not wearing glasses!" or "no, i don't need glasses!" (oddly, she doesn't remember me ever telling her that glasses might help her headache situation. she has apparently perfected the skill of selective listening...)

but for some reason, yesterday she decided that if she didn't have a pair of glasses on her face before she went to bed, she would be doomed to live the rest of her life wishing her head would just explode and put her out of her misery. and so, we spent the day looking for the perfect pair of glasses...

she made an appointment for 7:15 p.m. to have an eye exam. but did we wait until then to start our search? no we did not!

we started at costco, because you know, you can get a pair of glasses for a pretty reasonable price there. IF you can find some frames you like, which diandra could not. and IF you can wait two weeks for the new glasses to be made, which diandra could not.

our next stop was lens crafters. at lens crafters, the new pair of eyewear would be ready in an hour--a definite selling point for my instant gratification offspring. it came with a price--like three times as much as costco's price--but we looked anyway, with limited success...

...and then the angels sang!

diandra made the mistake of looking into the locked glass case...the one with frames by tiffany & co... (who even knew that tiffany had a line of eyeglass frames?!?!) and she fell in love. and then she looked at the price tag and stopped breathing... but then the sales person said they were having a sale which would give her half off the lenses AND she could get another 30% off with her AAA card. so she started breathing again, and smiled.

and smiled and smiled and smiled. now she was excited about wearing glasses.

but could i leave it at that and be excited with her? no i could not. i wanted to make sure that she was sure about that choice. so since we had some time before her appointment, i insisted that we check out a few more places. which we did. and she didn't see anything she liked as much as the tiffany frame...

we ate dinner, and she told her dad all about the perfect frames she had found. she had made peace with the price, and couldn't wait to get them! i was still unsure. but she is an adult, and i try to respect her choices (although sometimes she is forced to hear what i think anyway!) i took her back for her eye exam, and she was delighted to find that her eyes weren't too bad, so she won't have to wear glasses all the time. although, i was pretty sure she would want to wear them all the time, as excited as she was about the new frames. we returned to lens crafters, tried on the glasses again, and then it happened. the angels were silent. we were having second thoughts...

i'm sure she blames me and my incessant need to be sure i have exhausted all of the choices before making a decision. i blame my inability to make a decision in the face of all of those choices.

it was a lot of money. and while the frames were awesome, they didn't look as good on her face as some of the others we had seen. but she could get them in an hour!!! but they weren't the best choice for her face. but she loved them!! but that love was waning...

we debated. we compared. we talked about options. we looked at the clock and decided to go to another lens crafters at a different mall--just in case they had some different stock. and they did! but nothing that diandra was in love with...

by now it was 9:00 at night, and everything was closing. so i took a sad and frustrated girl home without new glasses, but with a plan...

this morning we got up and went back to an optical store, where she bought a pair of frames that she decided she loved. she loved them even more when they were handed to her in a pink leather case! but since that store couldn't meet her requirement of instant prescription lenses, we then took the new frames back to the mall to lenscrafters. (are you beginning to see a pattern here? we drove back and forth across town several times.) true to their word, in one hour her vision was corrected, she was happy, and most importantly, she looked cute!i wish i could say it wasn't that bad. but it was. and yet, it turned out good, we did have some fun, and i am glad i was able to help her...

...because soon, it is going to be time for me to get new glasses. and i think i know just who is going to have to come with me...

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

happy anniversary . . .

so today . . . is my wedding anniversary.

i was going to post some wedding pictures in honor of the event, but when i checked last year's anniversary blog, guess what i found? yep, wedding pictures...

then i thought i would write about how wonderful my husband is. but i frequently mention his wonderfulness and even wrote a whole blog about it on valentines day a year ago...

and yet, it is our anniversary, and i hate to let it go by without writing something. but we had a very low-key type of day...

we started talking about what to do to celebrate our anniversary a couple of weeks ago. we talked about going out of town for a few days. we talked about going to catalina just for the day. but neither idea worked out for us... i thought about going to the beach, or maybe to downtown disney. but then today turned out to be HOT! really, really HOT!!!! so doing anything outside was not going to be an option for me...

instead, we went to wood ranch bar-be-que for lunch. the food was delicious, and it was air-conditioned. that made it an excellent choice for today. then we went to see a movie.

(this sounds simple doesn't it? but you know, if it was that easy, i wouldn't be blogging about it...)

before we left for lunch, we looked at the movie listings to decide what to see and where to see it. we were each looking at different programs on our phones. my phone said our chosen movie was not playing at the theater by our restaurant, but rollie said his program said it did. and he is so rarely wrong, that i just figured i had misread my movie listings. so when we were full of steak and salmon, we headed off to the theater. on foot. in the heat. all the way across the burning asphalt. but it was ok, because i knew the cool of the movie theater was at the end of our trek...

while rollie went to buy our tickets (at the outside window,) i found a tiny bit of shade to stand in. i could almost taste the cold soda i knew was waiting for my just inside those glass doors... and then rollie came toward me. ticketless.

my movie listings were right. our movie was not playing at this theater.

i wanted to gloat, really i did, but it was so HOT! and now, since we had foolishly decided to walk to the theater instead of drive, we had to walk back to the car. on foot. in the heat. across the burning asphalt. without setting foot in the cool of the theater lobby. only now we had to hurry if we were going to make it to the mall in time to see the movie...

i was driving. i cranked up the a/c and took off. we made it just in time, and spent the next hour and a half laughing in the coolness of the dark theater. when the movie was over, we were glad we were at the mall, because rollie wanted frozen yogurt. i pointed him toward yogurtland...

rollie had never eaten at yogurtland, so i explained to him that he needed to get a bowl, fill it with whatever flavors of yogurt he wanted, and then top it with whatever he wanted on top. when he was finished, they would weigh it to determine it's cost. then i went to find a table.

when i get frozen yogurt at yogurtland, i always get cheesecake yogurt with strawberries on top. always. and i only fill the giant bowl half full. rollie had blueberry yogurt and peach yogurt and a tiny bit of mango yogurt and green apple yogurt. AND it was topped with mango and kiwi chunks. AND his bowl was overflowing!

he likes fruit.

he took about three bites and got brain freeze! not good, considering he had quite a lot of frozen yogurt left in his bowl. and none of it was cheesecake, so i wasn't going to be helping him eat it. he worked his way down through the layers of fruit flavors until he finally reached the bottom of the bowl.

"now what?" he said.

i wasn't really in the mood for shopping. my intestines are still not happy from the ordeal i put them through last week. but we were at the mall. so i said, "how about the apple store? would you like to go visit the apple store?"

the apple store is new at our mall, so he had never seen it. and it is huge and full of apple toys to play with. i said, "i will sit on those couches over there outside the apple store, and you go in and play. i'll be perfectly comfortable until you come out." this seemed like the best plan to me. and it would have been, if rollie had seen the apple store instead of walking right past it...

have you ever seen an apple store?!?!?! they are big and bright and shiny! they scream, "COME IN AND LET US MAKE YOU DISSATISFIED WITH YOUR CURRENT ELECTRONICS!!!" it is like a vortex that sucks you in when you walk by... how can you miss that?!?!?

i don't know, but when i looked in through the big glass doors, i couldn't find rollie. i looked all around the store, but did not see his head towering above the rest. "oh well," i thought, "he must be behind one of those big signs." and then i went back to playing games on my phone.

ten minutes later, there he was in front of me. "wow, that was fast," i thought. only he informed me that hadn't been in the store yet. "i saw you sitting on the couches, but i walked right by the store," he said. "i walked clear down to the intersection where there was a directory, and then i saw i had to come all the way back!"

uh huh. ok.

he finally made his way into the bright and shiny apple store and came out half an hour later wishing for an ipad. (you see? that is what the apple store does! all you have to do is walk in there, and suddenly you think you can't live without something that has a glowing apple on it...)

and that was the end of our celebration. i know it probably doesn't sound very exciting, but it was. it was exciting, because we enjoy just hanging out together. it was exciting, because after all this time, we still choose each other. it was exciting, because i know rollie will always be there for me.

so, our anniversary...it isn't about what we are doing--it is about being together. hopefully for a long, long time!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

the mysterious disappearance of 2008

so today . . . i cannot blog. all my photos from 2008 seem to have disappeared, and i need one of them to blog...

why, you may wonder, do i need a photo from 2008 in order to write a blog, which is really more about the words than about the pictures? well, because, i just do.

yesterday a friend of mine was in town for a short vacation, and i got to go see her. it made me smile and i came right home and started to blog about it. i added a photo that was taken of us. i wrote some more. then i went looking for that 2008 photo...and the folder with my 2008 photos seems to have gone awol!

i suppose i could post the blog without the picture--you wouldn't even know the difference--but it would feel incomplete to me. i must have it!!!!!

i don't know what could have happened to those pictures. i have been organizing my picture files (yes, still!) and am hoping i have not accidentally deleted 2008! it was a good year, and i would hate to lose it...

hopefully i will find the missing year of pictures. and when i do, you will get to read the blog i wrote yesterday. it will say "so today..." but it won't be about the day that it is posted--it will be about yesterday. which might confuse some of you...

...but that's what keeps things interesting :)

Friday, August 20, 2010

unselfish? maybe yes, maybe no...

so today . . . i chose to spend the day with my family instead of going to the gem show by myself.

i am kind of selfish. no, really, i am. i have finally admitted this to myself. i like to have things my way. and much of the time i get to have things my way. but i think this is not a good character trait, so i am trying to change and be less selfish sometimes.

i'm still not very good at it.

rollie is really good at it. he is the reason that i get things my way much of the time. in fact, he is the reason i was even considering going to the gem show today. he knows that by the end of the summer, since i don't get a paycheck when i don't work, i am pinching my pennies. so he handed me some cash and said, "why don't you just go to the gem show this afternoon. you could go all by yourself so you wouldn't have to hurry. you could just take your time and look at all the rocks and have fun!" so that was my plan...

but yesterday he had mentioned going to the movies today. and i knew diandra wanted to go too, so instead of going to the gem show by myself, i went to the movies with my family. we went to the cheap theater to see "knight and day." rollie picked the movie. this gave diandra a reason to say, "uh oh." because every time the two of them go to the movies, and rollie picks it, it turns out to be a terrible movie! half the time, they end up getting up and walking out.

i would just like to say, this never happens when i choose the movie.

rollie says it isn't his fault. he says that when it is just him and diandra, he tries to choose something that i wouldn't enjoy seeing, which severely limits their choices. which i guess technically makes it my fault, but still...

the critics hated this movie--which was good news for us. we frequently love movies the critics hate. (we also frequently love tv shows that get canceled in their first season.) we are not big tom cruise fans but we love cameron diaz. (ok, i like tom cruise, even though i think he is a little bit out there in real life. but i like him in movies--i can't defend it, i just do. diandra does not agree with me. but then, she likes those vampire boys--yeah, explain the appeal of that to me. and we both like cameron diaz. rollie is oddly silent on his movie star preferences...)

so there we were.

we had a great time. it was fun and entertaining. there was romance--sort of. there was intrigue. there were good guys and bad guys--but we weren't always sure which was which. stuff blew up. there were unbelievable car chases. and cameron diaz's eyes shone bluer than blue clear through to the end. yes, it was far-fetched, but it wasn't supposed to be a documentary! it was a movie!! i know there were impossible coincidences and stunts, but i didn't care! it was fun!! i don't go to the movies to feel other people's pain or drama or difficulties--i have enough of my own to deal with. i want to laugh. and hear my family laugh. and have rollie and diandra saying the same thing into my ears at the same time. and high-fiving each other in front of me and behind me. (yes, i was in the middle this time.) i want to eat my hot dog and drink my soda and walk out into the sunshine feeling good! and today i did :)

i sort of thought i would try to go to the gem show after the movie, but it was late enough that traffic was going to be an issue. and diandra wanted me to go with her to get her hair cut. so, still practicing the whole unselfish thing, we went to the mall...

i watched diandra get her hair cut--practically one hair at a time! she just wanted it trimmed, and the hair stylist took her very seriously. i kept looking at the floor to see the results, but the floor looked clean to me. when she got done, i said, "it doesn't look any shorter! if i was paying that much for a haircut, i would want it to look shorter!" "mom!" she replied, "i pay that much for a haircut so that it doesn't look any shorter!!"

ok...

we spent a little time wandering the mall. for the first time EVER i came out of american eagle with a bag and diandra didn't! we braved forever 21, and managed to get in and out without security being alerted. but my american eagle victory was short-lived, as diandra made a second trip in, and came out with, yes, jeans...

i may go to the gem show tomorrow. or i may not. the gem show comes to town several times a year, but days like today are not going to happen forever. families grow and change, and ours will too. but for now, for today, my unselfishness paid off. oddly enough, what started out as an unselfish choice actually ended up paying selfish dividends, because i got to spend the day with two of my favorite people.

and i didn't have to share them :)

Thursday, August 19, 2010

i'm not stealing--i'm sharing...

so today . . . i finally underwent the dreaded annual procedure. i got the warm blanket and the lovely sedative. i spent the rest of the day sleeping, waking only momentarily to get a little food inside my hungry body. i am beginning to feel like myself again...

i was going to write about the whole horrifying experience that leads up to the procedure, but instead i am going to do something i've never done before and probably will never do again.

i'm going to steal someone else's story and post it here.

i'm doing this for a couple of reasons. first, i'm still a little fuzzy-brained--i just don't have the brain power to write a whole blog. second, it looks to me like this particular blog, written by pulitzer prize winning author dave berry, has been copied and printed on almost every blog on the internet--except for mine--so by reprinting it on my blog, i'll be running with the big dogs. and third, his description of the experience is just perfect. there is no improving on it.

so here it is--my first (and hopefully last) pirated blog.

... I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, "HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!"

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate. 'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, Feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

my experience is not exactly the same as mr. berry's. while i have never used moviprep, i have used similar products. my body does not like them and simply refuses to keep them down. so, i spend two days before my procedure drinking clear liquids and trying alternative methods of preparing my colon for it's photo shoot--none of which work very well, which causes me a lot of anxiety. but it is a necessary evil, so i keep thinking about the warm blankets and sedatives that are in my future if i just persevere...

and i am glad to say i got through it. the procedure itself was a piece of cake. i got pictures of my colon to bring home. (you can thank me later for not posting them.) i had a lovely nurse before the procedure, (who was very good with an iv needle,) and attila the hun after it was over. he would not leave me alone! every five minutes he tried to wake me up, and all i wanted to do was sleep, sleep, sleep...

so i'm good for another year. i hope!

Monday, August 16, 2010

maybe it isn't so bad...

so today . . . i had an epiphany about prepping for a colonoscopy...

(i'll bet those are words you never imagined would be strung together in a sentence!)

since my failed attempt at colon prepping a few weeks ago, i knew i was going to have to do it again. it is a precautionary annual procedure that is necessary because, as i have mentioned, my colon hates me...

but my gastrointestinal doctor loves me! so she has forced her whole team to come in an hour early on thursday just so i don't have to wait several months for a new appointment. wasn't that nice?!?!?!? (that was sarcasm, in case you didn't catch that!)

i knew it was coming, but i was sort of living in denial--until tonight. tonight i realized that i was going to have to start the prep tomorrow. this means two full days without food. TWO DAYS!! and then i have to ingest chemicals whose sole purpose is to, shall we say, quickly eliminate any unnecessary substances lurking in my intestinal system. yeah, you know what i mean...

but i hadn't purchased the necessary substances yet. so off i went to wal-mart, my drug store of choice.

(this reminds me of when diandra was about four years old. that commercial with the frying egg was popular. you know the one--"this is your brain. this is your brain on drugs" sizzle, sizzle... diandra had seen the commercial and asked what drugs were, so we had explained it. we thought. until the day my grandma was babysitting her. they were making some sort of craft and needed some supplies. payless was just down the road. they got in the car to go, and diandra asked where they were going. my grandma innocently said, "to the drug store." diandra's little eyes got big, and she said in a loud voice, "but grandma! drugs are bad!")

:) ok, back to my story...

i entered the store and headed straight to the pharmacy. i picked up a box of ducolax and two bottles of magnesium citrate. and as i was standing there with this armful chemicals designed to aid in the elimination of anything ingested, i had my epiphany--i could eat anything i wanted tonight, because tomorrow it would all just go swooshing out of my body! it wouldn't matter if i ate vegetables or chocolate cake tonight--it was all going out!

so i did the only thing i could do. i got a bag of chewy chips ahoy cookies.

i started to the cash registers to pay, when i realized what i was buying--an armload of laxatives and a bag of cookies. i could just imagine the looks i was going to get from some cashier. i am small and lightweight, and here i was ready to leave wal-mart looking like i was headed home to binge and purge. so i stopped. i turned around. i made my way to the self-checkout lines. at least there, there would be no cashier to call the diet police.

i scanned my items and bagged them. i pulled out my debit card and swiped it. i entered my pin number. and then these words appeared on the screen: please wait for a cashier to assist you.

are you kidding me?!?!?! here i am doing my best to fly under the radar with my suspicious purchases, and the self-check out line decides i need assistance?!?!? somehow this machine knows that i shouldn't be buying cookies and all these laxatives?!?!?! how is that possible???

i looked around for the lucky employee who was going to "assist" me. i started preparing my explanation. surely she would believe me. surely she wouldn't take one look at my scrawny frame and think, "this girl needs an intervention," and take away my cookies...

(you notice that i was worried about the cookies being taken away, not the laxatives.)

thankfully she was apparently counting down the minutes until she could go home, because she quickly counted the four items in my bag, handed me my receipt, and said to have a good day.

clearly she doesn't know what is in store for me.

as i drove home, i started thinking about what i wanted for dinner. this new freedom to eat whatever i wanted without regard for it's healthiness opened up so many possibilities. i knew that dinner tonight would be my last meal until thursday afternoon, and now i could eat anything!! where to go... what to order... i was nearly paralyzed with choices. then i saw the jack-in-the-box sign, and knew i could find something totally unhealthy to eat there. because that was now my goal!

i looked at the menu with new eyes. calories and content of the food was not an issue. i could choose anything off the menu and eat it without thinking about it's glycemic index. taste became my only consideration. so again, i did the only thing i could do--i ordered deep-fried potato wedges with melted cheddar and bacon on top and ranch dressing to dip them in.

oh, and cheesecake.

:)

i guess maybe there are some advantages to this ghastly annual procedure. it has just taken me a while to figure it out...

Sunday, August 15, 2010

writer's block

so today . . . i seem to be experiencing writer's block.

i haven't blogged in a few days. i've tried. i've started several, but they just aren't very good. i don't think it is very interesting if my blog is just an accounting of my daily activities. if i can't find some humor or ridiculousness in it, then it isn't very much fun to write. and i'm sure it isn't very much fun to read.

the truth is, i am kind of experiencing emotional overload, so "funny" is kind of elusive. i'm not in the middle of a crisis or anything, i just have a lot on my mind. i thought about taking a little break from blogging, but every time i say i am going to do that, suddenly funny stuff starts happening. which might be a good technique to employ, now that i think about it...

so we will just have to wait and see what happens in the next few days. i'm not going to waste your time by blogging if i don't really have anything to say--well, after i write this one :) but i am hopeful that once i give my brain permission to rest, it will get funny again.

and if that doesn't work, don't despair. school starts in two weeks, and oh, the class i am going to have this year... a lot of rowdy boys in a very small space...

i'm already stockpiling the valium :)

Thursday, August 12, 2010

today's plan? errands and a movie :)

so today . . . i ate bar-be-que potato chips and went to a movie by myself.

neither of these things are earth shattering, but they sort of sum up my day.

this is my last full day alone, and i woke up still thinking about getting my hair cut. i have been putting it off, because my bangs are just the perfect length, and that only happens for about three days every few months. my hair looks fine, but it feels heavy and annoying. and i was afraid that if i didn't go in and get it cut by someone who knew what they were doing, i might just break out my own scissors and see what happened. i have been known to do that before--usually late at night, when my hair is at it's worst and there is no place i can go for a haircut--not even supercuts! and the results are never good...

this morning i walked into supercuts, and for the first time ever in my experience, there were no customers in the store--not one! i sat down and got the full sales pitch on all the hair products that were on sale... none of which i wanted. i finally got my hair cut, and it felt much better. except for the bangs... they are now too short.

i decided since i was out, i should just do some errands. so i whipped out my list and headed to wal-mart. i got crayola crayons for 25 cents per box! and these were the boxes of 24!! (i know, i sound waaaay too excited.) i watch for this sale every year, because whether you are buying crayons or markers or watercolors, crayola is the best!! i don't know if they use special pigments or what, but their colors are definitely more vibrant than any others. which is probably why they cost more. and when you are buying for a whole classroom, you have to watch for the really good, back-to-school pricing. of course, this put me smack in the middle of the school supplies... (luckily, because i found the coolest folder! i have no idea what i am going to use it for, but it made me smile for only $1!)

wal-mart is also where i found the bar-be-que chips.

i got the last bag. clearly bar-be-que is the flavor of choice, since several other flavors were still on the shelves. i brought the bag home, and ate almost all of it. by myself. but it's ok, because that is all i ate today. and according to the package, it had 11 servings at 150 calories per serving. since there are a few chips left, i figure i ate about 9 servings which equal 1350 calories. and you know, people lose weight on 1500 calories a day, so i think i am good...

...except i did eat a hot dog at the movie theater. i went to the cheap theater to watch iron man 2. all by myself. i really wanted to see it, because i loved the first one, but it just hadn't happened. so when i saw it was at the cheap theater, i knew i had to go! i walked up to the ticket booth and asked for one ticket. the cashier, who was probably 15, just looked at me. then he gave me a big smile. i could almost see his thoughts--"it's perfectly ok that you are here by yourself. lots of people come to the movies by themselves. although most of them are alone because they have no family or friends or job. but hey! i'm sure that isn't true of you. i'm sure you have a ton of people you could have asked to come with you today. you are probably always surrounded by family and friends showering you with love and attention, and you came by yourself today because you were craving some alone time. right???"

uh huh... whatever...

the movie was really good. then i came home and vacuumed. yes, i vacuumed. rollie and diandra are coming home tomorrow, so i needed to pick up the debris that seems to collect around me (papers, magazines, photo albums, chip bags...) and prepare to share my space once again.

because while i really like my alone time (that 15 year old kid wasn't all that wrong,) i will be glad when my family comes back. as cute as my dogs are, neither of them are great conversationalists...

... and i think i might be ready to eat something that is not a snack food...

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

maybe i need a plan...

so today . . . i've been restless and lethargic all at one time.

you might think these two things are mutually exclusive, but they are not. and it is miserable to experience both at once! should i take a nap or take a walk? should i clean out my closet or go to the mall? should i eat a brownie (which is just sitting there in a package waiting for me to devour it) or a salad (which requires preparation.) it is unsettling...

i texted my dilemma to rollie. he is in illinois. he said i should forget about trying to accomplish anything and just do whatever i felt like doing. which was good advice, except i didn't know what i felt like doing. i wanted to work on my photo scanning project, but i couldn't find the big, rectangular folding table to set everything up on.

yes, apparently i have misplaced a table!!! i am thinking it must be the innocent victim of my perpetual rearranging of things, because it isn't where i left it and i know i didn't get rid of it. at least, i think i know i didn't get rid of it. but i can't imagine where i would have rearranged it to! i mean, there aren't that many places it could be... the one place i know it is not, is in the family room, ready to hold my computer and scanner and dvd drive and hard drive and photo albums!

so i decided to work on cleaning out my closet instead. i started that project yesterday, but then it got dark. i don't like to be in my bedroom after dark--it is not well lit, so it is very shadowy and i feel like i can't see anything. which is why i decided i should go in there today while it was still daylight. i thought i would watch tv while i worked, but unless you want to watch talk shows or judge shows, the choices are quite limited. no problem for me, though--we have netflix!!

i say we, but after scrolling through the choices, i realized it is mostly rollie and diandra that have netflix. because unless i wanted to watch the x-files, lost, dirty jobs, future weapons, survivorman, man vs. wild, deadliest catch, friday night lights, the hills, or various science fiction movies, i was in trouble. (i quickly logged onto netflix and downloaded a season of a show called miami ink--it is about a tattoo parlor. i can't wait to see what kind of reaction i get when rollie thinks i am really going to watch it--yes, i am easily amused! in fact, i might even actually watch it...) i finally found a couple of movies to watch and proceeded to try on every. single. thing. in my closet.

that might sound like fun. you know, kind of like playing dress up. but it was NOT fun. the whole point was to get rid of stuff, but i like everything in my closet. obviously!! i mean, i spent time and money to put each item in there, so getting rid of things was not all that much fun. i am beginning to think that i should just wear black or white and get rid of everything else, because it takes up a lot of space to have tank tops and t-shirts and sweaters in every shade of the rainbow... not to mention jackets and dresses! and shoes!!

as darkness approached, i headed to the family room (where there are decent lights!) and my computer. after checking to see what had been happening on facebook all day, i was thinking it might be time to indulge my restlessness and get out of the house. i was thinking maybe a movie and a hot dog at the cheap theater. so i checked the listings and found that iron man 2 is still playing! yesssss!! but only at 4:45 and 9:30. bummer!! it was 8:00 which meant i would have to go to the 9:30 show, and i was pretty sure i was too tired for that tonight. so then i thought i would go get my hair cut. i took it out of the ponytail where it has resided for most of the summer and decided maybe it looked ok.

so i ate an ice cream bar, and tried to blog.

but milo would not leave me alone!! the dogs get weird when we are not all at home. he was trying to get into my lap (where my computer was,) and licking my face, and pawing my hands. and when that didn't work, he rolled over on his back and waved his paws at me. and when that didn't work, he squirmed around to try to make upside down eye contact with me...

...and fell off the couch.

yes, we have had quite a full day. tomorrow, i think i will go out...

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

all alone...

so today . . . i am home alone. hehehe...

i took rollie to the airport after lunch. the traffic was light, and the trip was uneventful. i stopped at 7-11 on the way home and bought two brownies, two bananas, and two bags of chips. so far, i have eaten both bags of chips and one brownie. my plan is to eat a banana when i am done blogging, which will leave me a brownie and a banana for breakfast!

i may have to eat salad for lunch tomorrow...

rollie would never eat a brownie for breakfast. although, he did eat one of those 40 minute hard boiled eggs this morning. and he didn't die. but he did say they were kind of dry. he tried to warm one up for his breakfast, and he said it didn't get very warm. his explanation (and i am not sure i am buying it,) is that microwaves heat food by activating the moisture in the food, and apparently these eggs do not have enough moisture in them to get warm... i don't know what to say about that. i told him he didn't have to eat the eggs, but he said they weren't that bad.

there's a rousing appreciation for my efforts!

i got my computer back today, too. james, the computer wizard, finished working on my computer last night, so when i got home from the airport, i spent some serious time catching up on all my internet stuff. my old computer sort of bridged the gap, but it is SO SLOW!!!!!!! which i know is relative, but still...

and now i am sitting here at 11:30, all by myself for the next two and a half days! i'm going to eat a banana and maybe some ice cream. i'm going to set up the family room for the photo project i want to do while rollie and diandra are gone. i'm going to stay up late and THEN leave the tv on while i go to sleep. and tomorrow, i may take a break and go to a movie. all by myself...

...after i eat a salad, of course :)

Monday, August 9, 2010

hey...stuff happens...

so today . . . we may discover the answer to that burning question, "how long is too long to boil an egg?"

rollie eats a lot of boiled eggs. usually he boils his own, 18 at a time. he has it down to a science--boil water in the biggest saucepan we have, gently lower 18 eggs into the boiling water, boil for 12 minutes exactly, remove from heat and douse with cold water, and refrigerate. this results in perfectly boiled eggs with lovely bright yellow centers. i know there are other methods, but this is the way he does it, and it works! every. single. time.

last night i went into the kitchen for a handful of nuts (which is my healthy substitute for chips. although i am not sure how healthy it is when i eat 12 handfuls a day...) and i noticed the egg box was on the counter. this tells me that we are out of boiled eggs, and rollie is planning to boil some in the morning. which is a perfectly good plan.

except...

... i suddenly decided to be susie homemaker and boil his eggs for him! yes, i love him that much! just think, i think to myself, how surprised and happy he will be when he gets up for breakfast and the eggs are already boiled. i got out the big saucepan, filled it with water, and put it on to boil. i even took the eggs out of the refrigerator so they would warm up a little to avoid unnecessary cracking! (see, i know how to cook!) i gently lowered the eggs into the boiling water and started to set the timer.

but there was a problem--two actually. first of all, i kind of forgot about the water boiling, so by the time i put the eggs in, the water level was just a little bit low. i decided it was ok--only a few egg tops were poking out of the water, and i thought i would just flip them over halfway through the cooking time and they would be fine.

the second problem was the cooking time. i didn't want to set the timer, because rollie was sleeping and i wanted the eggs to be a surprise. so i just looked at my watch, took note of the time, and headed back to my computer and my blog.

later i went into the kitchen for more nuts (no, it isn't an addiction! they are just nuts!!) and saw the pan on the stove... uh oh... i looked at my watch. it had been 40 minutes since i put the eggs in the water! forty minutes!!! i grabbed the pan and put it in the sink, thinking that maybe if i ran enough cold water over the eggs they would be fine. really. surely they would be fine. i mean, once an egg is hard-boiled you can't burn it, can you??

you see, this is why i don't cook. cooking requires a certain amount of attention to the task. cooking requires me to stay in the kitchen. if i walk out of the kitchen, i totally forget that i am cooking. i am the poster child for "out of sight, out of mind," especially when it comes to certain tasks...

the eggs are still cooling in the sink. now i just have to decide whether to crack one open myself to assess the damage, or leave them for rollie to discover.

i did, after all, want to surprise him...

Sunday, August 8, 2010

the electronics revolt!

so today . . . this may be a very short blog. it is totally up to my old laptop computer.

yesterday i connected my computer to my photo printer/scanner/copier to continue scanning negatives. i hit the "scan" button, only to get a message that said something like, "your computer is woefully inadequate for this task. it is out of room on it's hard drive. how could you not know this was coming?!?!? why do you keep trying to stuff more information on it??!?! it's full, i tell you, FULL!!! CALL JAMES RIGHT NOW!!!"

ok, it didn't exactly say that, but that's what i heard.

i knew it was going to eventually be an issue. last week i defragged the hard drive to make more room, but i knew it was a very short-term solution. however, when i defragged, i realized that for some insane reason my computer's 160gb hard drive was divided into two parts! and i could apparently only access one!!! i immediately texted james, my computer wizard. he said he could fix it for me so that i could use all the space (thank you!) but he would need my computer for a day or two.

gulp. a day or two? would that mean, like, overnight??!?! because really, i'm not sure i can do that...

i continued scanning negatives--until last night. that's when my precious laptop refused to accept any more photos.

houston, we have a problem...

i took my computer to church with me this morning to work on a music project for the band. after church i talked to james about my hard drive issue. and he said, "oh, you have your computer with you? i could just take it now. then i could get it back to you in a couple of days." what?!?! oh nonononononono! i was not ready to be computerless just yet. i needed time to adjust, time to plan. i have things to do... i found myself involuntarily moving my computer out of his reach. "do you have your power cord?" he innocently asked. yesssss! i did not have my power cord with me! "oh, no, i guess you can't take it now," i said. "i'll have to get it to you later, when i have the power cord." panic temporarily averted, but i knew i was going to have to give it up. eventually. because i needed james to work his magic, and he needed time in which to do it...

i came home, burned some cds, played on facebook for a while, checked my email, and then said good-bye to my fifth appendage for who knows how long.

and so... i am blogging on my old laptop. the reason it is my old laptop instead of my current laptop, is that the keyboard doesn't always work. sometimes some of the letters refuse to show up unless i press them 459 times--and sometimes not even then. which is why i am not sure how long this blog will be, because at any moment the keys could stop working...

in fact, i am amazed that it has let me write as much as i have, because today my electronics appear to be attempting a coup. it actually started this morning with my phone. i tried to send a very important text during church, but my phone refused!! (ok, i know i shouldn't be texting during church, but i HAD to find out if someone was going to be playing the drums with me at the end of the service. because if i didn't have a drummer, i was considering faking a sickness and going home. because really, the last song was going to be that bad without a drummer...) and then i tried to text diandra after church, and my phone still refused. and THEN someone left me a voicemail and when i tried to retrieve it, my phone acted like it didn't know me--it wanted me to give it a password and record a new message . . . AND THEN when i received a text, the sound was all wonky.

i think my phone is feeling it's age, because rollie and diandra both have new cell phones, which makes mine feel old... and it is clearly not happy about being the senior citizen of our little electronics family. but that is no reason to punish me! i love my phone--i don't know why it has turned on me...

but that is not all--oh no. while i was sitting here trying to blog on a six-year-old temperamental laptop, and keeping a wary eye on my phone (who i don't even know anymore!) the TIVO started acting weirdly. i wasn't even watching a recording! i was watching live tv and it kept pausing and stuttering, and i wasn't doing anything! i wasn't!! (i know you don't believe me, but it is true!!!)

i don't think it is a full moon. i don't think aliens have landed. but all this electronic misfiring on the same day makes me wonder, just a little bit, if perhaps something has changed in the atmosphere... or maybe the government is finally trying to take control of my electronics... or maybe i am dreaming... now where did i put my totem...

Friday, August 6, 2010

when "good enough" just isn't...

so today . . . i am trying to wrestle my ocd tendencies into submission. but they are strong and somewhat resistant...

first of all, let's be clear--i have never been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. i'm pretty sure if i were tested for it, medical professionals would laugh me out of their offices. but i do have some tendencies that scream OCD!!! probably a more accurate description of my idiosyncrasies would be "frustrated perfectionist." i want things to be perfect. i need things to be perfect. yet, i know that things will never be perfect--hence, the "frustrated" part--so i don't even want to try.

well, that is not exactly true. sometimes i try. sometimes i look at a project and think, "i can do this. it may take me months and months, but i can do it." my closet is a perfect example of this. i clean it out. i organize it. i catalog it. i list everything in it. i organize the list. then i clean it out again. reorganize it. update the list. go shopping. update the list. clean it out again. and so on. and so on.

this is why it took me over a year to organize my digital music files just the way i wanted them. (i have a lot of music.)

i recently decided that it would be a good idea to digitize all my old negatives. when diandra was born, we decided that every photo we took of her was priceless and irreplaceable. so i immediately became worried that there would be a fire or a flood which would destroy both my photos and the negatives. (i'm not paranoid either. really.) i needed insurance . . . and it came in the form of velveeta cheese boxes and my mother.

the only solution i could see to save my precious photos from natural disasters (or unnatural ones) was to keep the negatives in a different location than the photos. since i had the photos, i decided my mother should have the negatives. so i put the negatives in velveeta cheese boxes (which fit them perfectly,) and gave them to my mom to keep at her house. my mom also had a set of photos--we always printed doubles--but for some reason i always thought her house was safer from fire or flood than mine. so i entrusted the precious negatives to her...

then we entered the digital age. and the priceless photos yellowed, and the negatives lay hidden in the dark at my mom's house. and i developed this need to digitize them. so i decided to scan the strips of 35mm film into my computer. but it wasn't as simple as it sounds...

i am using my beloved canon photo printer/copier/scanner which i have had for a few years. it is specially designed to scan negatives, which is one of the reasons i bought this particular model. but now that i am ready to scan my negatives, i can't find the manual. no problem, i thought. i will just go online and download the manual. which i did. and it was not helpful at all, because it kept saying, "refer to the manual that came with your printer for specific instructions." yes, that would have been great advice if i could find the manual that came with my printer. but i can't. which is why i downloaded one. i could see a vicious catch 22 developing . . . so i decided manuals were highly overrated. i would just figure it out for myself. how hard could it be?!?!?!

i lifted the lid and saw some irregularities in the plastic. ok, let's just take this thing apart, i thought. which was probably a good first step, because i found the part that should hold each piece of film, but i couldn't figure out how to snap it back into the lid. i turned it. i flipped it. it HAD to go where the light strip was, but i could not figure out how to make it stay there. i laid it on the glass while i poked around some more. which is how i discovered it would snap into place on the glass and then the light strip would lower onto it. it was a clever design, but not exactly intuitive--at least not for me!

i started scanning in the negatives. i scanned several rolls of film and was delighted to see my baby's precious face emerging. and then i went to bed.

the next day when i started scanning photos, i realized that for some reason, many of the photos were taken from quite a distance away. what if i wanted to crop one? what if i wanted to print an 8x10 of one? i checked the resolution and realized that it was not going to be enough. so, you know what i had to do? i had to re-scan all those negatives at a higher resolution! yes, i said re-scan. because it wasn't going to be good enough to just do all the rest at the higher resolution--i had to do them ALL!

you see?!?!? ocd tendencies. because really, am i ever going to do anything with those old photos? probably not--they aren't that good. but then i look at that smiling baby face, and realize that i want the best resolution i can get.i fear that i am going to be working on these photos for a long, long time. because i still haven't figured out how i am going to scan the 110mm film. and then once i get them all into the computer, i have a date with photoshop. there are imperfections that need to be erased, deterioration that needs to be restored, and colors that need to be corrected.

i'm going to be working on these until i die . . .

Thursday, August 5, 2010

don't mess with a blogger!

so today . . . rollie said i am a disturbance!

he didn't exactly use those words... but i know that is what he meant.

the nature of rollie's job means that it is usually one interruption after another--people, people, phone calls, more people. and that is fine, unless he is doing something that requires him to maintain a train of thought--like writing his sermons. when he needs an interruption-free zone, he works at home. in the man room. which works pretty well during the school year when i am not here. but in the summer...

and he has gadget ears (remember inspector gadget?) so he hears every tiny little noise--through walls, through closed doors, even on a different floor of the house! so when he is working at home, i try to be as quiet as i can be...

but he is home. and i can't always remember what i want to tell him if i have to wait. so if i think of something important, i just go the man room and tell him.

this is exactly the kind of thing he works at home to avoid.

this morning as i was laying in bed, trying to convince myself i should get up, i picked up my phone and read my texts and emails. there were two comments from people about yesterday's blog. this got me started thinking about next week, and not eating, and being alone with no one to complain to... and then i thought, "wait, if my procedure is next week, then i only have two weeks left before school starts. that can't be right." so i went downstairs, found my appointment card, and checked the date. hmmm. apparently my procedure is not next week--it is the 19th!

YAY!! i'm doing the happy dance!

so of course i went up to the man room to share this wonderful news with rollie. because he had been kind of upset when he realized he was going to be gone, and i was going to have do deal with all of that alone (you see, he wasn't thinking it was his lucky day--well, maybe just a little bit, with the involuntary part of his brain. but the part of his brain that he controls was worried about me.) then i said, "now i am going to have to print a retraction, because i just blogged about how terrible it was going to be to waste my 'alone' days prepping for my procedure." (i usually call it my "procedure" because that is more vague than colonoscopy. people tend to get this panicky look in their eyes when they hear the word colonoscopy--even if they have never had one.) "you did?" he said. "i haven't read it yet." and he immediately pulled the blog up on his computer and read it. then he laughed and said, "it changes the air pressure when i am home?!?!?!" "yes," i replied, "it does. i can't explain it, but it does."

i started to leave the room, and he said, "can you close the door? because it works both ways, you know..."

SEE!!!!! he thinks i am a disturbance! at least to his air pressure...

i closed the door and came immediately to my computer.

because the blogger always gets the last word.

:)

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

julie-0, the cosmos-1

so today . . . i am convinced that the cosmos plots against me. and no, i am not paranoid. you'll see . . .

next week rollie and diandra are going to be out of town for a few days. at the same time. which means i will be home all alone. aaaallllll alone.

:)

i occasionally need time by myself. i can't exactly explain why, i just know that i do. i mean totally by myself--the kind of by myself where the rest of my family is OUT OF TOWN. when we lived in oregon it seemed that it was easier for me to achieve this alone-time--rollie would have to go out of town for a meeting, and diandra would spend the night with a friend, and voila--i would be alone.

but now that we live so close to everything, rollie doesn't have to go out of town for meetings--he just goes across town. and while diandra is still sometimes gone overnight, it never seems to coincide with rollie's absence . . .

it isn't like the two of them are always in the same room with me. rollie spends much of his free time hanging out in the "man room," and diandra is out of the house quite a bit. but it isn't the same. if they are in the house, it changes the air pressure. really! i can feel them in the house. and they distract me--even if i can't see them, they are distracting to me. i know they are there . . .

but next week they are going to be gone for three days. three whole days. i got pretty excited about this. and i started planning . . . because whenever i am alone for more than a day, i do a project. i paint walls. i buy new sheets or towels. i rearrange things. i organize. i stay up late. i leave the tv on all night while i sleep. i eat ice cream and frozen pizza and chips. i go to a movie. all. by. myself.

it is heaven.

and so, as much as i love my family, i really look forward to those rare occasions that leave me home alone. like those three special days next week . . .

. . . and then . . .

i traded messages with a friend on facebook. he is going to be in town next week, and we were talking about the possibility of getting together. so i was looking at the calendar, and that's when i saw it--my newly scheduled colonoscopy. and guess when it is scheduled for? yes, while rollie and diandra are going to be gone! so i am going to spend my first two days alone drinking clear liquids. no ice cream. no pizza. no chips. and i am not going to feel good, because when i don't eat, i feel sick. so there will also be no project. no organizing. no new sheets or towels. no movies.

what there will be, on the third day, is an invasive procedure--which i will have to endure all by myself. someone unrelated to me will have to get up ridiculously early, come pick me up, take me to the medical center, wait for me, try to get me to wake up from the sedative--a nearly impossible task--and then leave me at home to sleep it off. all. by. myself.

this is not exactly the plan i had for myself next week. i am going to be alone, alright, but i am not going to be having any of the fun i had planned. instead i am going to be miserable, and no one will be here to hear me complain. rollie and diandra may be saying, "this is our lucky day!" but i am saying, "bah! humbug!!"

i told you--the cosmos hates me . . .

sigh.

Monday, August 2, 2010

happy birthday to yooouuuuuu!

so today . . . is my mom's birthday.

birthdays seem to be about how old you are, but i'm not going to tell you how old my mom is. because if you have ever met her, you wouldn't believe me anyway! no one does. sometimes people look at diandra and me and my mom, and shake their heads--because the math just doesn't work. diandra seems older than she is, my mom seems younger, and there i am in the middle . . . which is not a bad place to be :)

my mom is way younger than her birth certificate would show. i think that is because she has so many interests. and she is always learning new things--mostly electronic things. she is on facebook. she is on twitter. she sends text messages. she even uses the internet on her new phone to read my blog sometimes. and now she is learning to read from a kindle.

according to my friend wendy's facebook page, mark twain said, "age is an issue of mind over matter. if you don't mind, it doesn't matter." i think that is true. age is somewhat relative. it doesn't really matter how old a person is. what matters is who a person is.

my mom is smart and funny and well-read and organized. she loves her family and her dog and her friends and her church--even though none of them are perfect. well, except for the dog. she likes movies and puzzles and books and electronics. she hates to have her picture taken. (i know this about her, but i really wanted a picture for this blog. i searched my photo files, but mom sightings are few and far between! i was lucky to find this one.) she is strong and healthy and takes good care of herself, so that she will continue to be strong and healthy for a very long time.

my mom is awesome. i hope i am just like her when i grow up :)

happy birthday mom! i love you!!