Thursday, March 31, 2011

march 2011. the month i will eventually forget.

so today . . . is the last day of march. this means my self-imposed exile from the land of blogging is almost over...

it has been quite a month. i have had ideas for blogs rolling around in my head, but i never seemed able to sit down and write...

there was the day rollie took me to the outlet mall to choose a birthday present, and the result was me sitting in a chair in the corner of the coach store with an armful of handbags, paralyzed with indecision...

there was the day i sent my pre-k kids across the hall to an empty classroom with a huge piece of butcher paper, toy cars, and paint... oh yes, and my teaching assistant... and paint shirts, which were of no help at all...

there was the day diandra and i zipped to the outlet mall after school and experienced deja'vu...

there was the day i discovered the top on my beloved convertible was 'letting the sun shine in'--even when it was closed...

there was the day my future son-in-law came straight to our house from kuwait... well, actually he went to germany and georgia and lax first... but then he came straight to our house!

and then there was the wedding...

and my wedding dress... which was nearly a catastrophe, but turned out to be something really special... and las vegas on st. patrick's day... and purple christmas balls, silver christmas balls, and clear, lucite jewels... and terrible wind... and a beautiful bride with a sparkly bouquet... and a groom with a temperature... and a dad who loved his daughter enough to step waaaay out of his comfort zone...

there was the day i took my mom to the las vegas outlet mall... and made her go into the juicy couture store... and the guess store... and the coach store... and she made me go into chico's... and the store with the elusive hush puppy shoes... and then i made her go back to the coach store... (and before you think someone should take all our credit cards away, we did not actually make purchases in all those stores...)

there was the day my brother called to tattle on my mom... which was also the day my dad had some kind of major surgery... which is why my brother felt the need to tattle on my mom... yes, some days we are still children!

there was the day i started walking the dogs again... and decided to walk them both at the same time... (let's just say, we survived, but it wasn't pretty...)

there were the days that rollie left the house at 8:00 a.m. and didn't get home until 10:30 p.m... and the hunt for the perfect couch for his new office... and the chairs that almost got away...

there was a whole week of rain... and not one single weather blog! (count your blessings!!)

there was the day i tried to play music on my iphone and couldn't figure out where the ipod icon was... (anyone with an iphone is now saying to themselves, "what?!?!? how could she not see it???" all i have to say is, you just don't understand how my brain works...)

there were days i laughed, and days i cried, and days i just felt like crying while wishing i could laugh...

and there were pink shoes with flowers that unexpectedly appeared...

and once in a lifetime moments.

yes, march was quite a month. and as i read back over this list, i am really sad that i missed all that blogging! because while i remember these incidents happening, i don't remember the small details, or who said what, or how i felt... because i didn't write it down.

i blog so that i can remember the small, funny things that happen to me... just in case, you know, my brain ever fails me. (EVER fails me?!?!? please. my brain fails me every. single. day.)

you thought i blogged to entertain you, didn't you. but i don't. i blog so i can remember my life.

april fool's to you!

;-)

Monday, March 7, 2011

hey! it isn't as easy as it sounds!!

so today . . . i was all prepared to tell you that i am going to take the rest of the month of march off. it has been crazy, between sickness and traveling out of town for business and a wedding and pre-k evaluations and helping rollie find the perfect sofa for his office... i have to say that there isn't much funny happening in my life right now--i can't even make funny stuff up!! (which is not to say that i make stuff up for my blog. i don't. everything you read on here is 100% true...) i sit down and write "so today..." and then... nothing.

i don't like to take a vacation from blogging, because i have found that if i take too many days off, i have a terrible time putting my brain back into blogging mode. but the truth is, blogging takes a lot of brain power, and right now my brain is otherwise occupied.

march 2011 is the month that is threatening to put me away. the straight jacket is dancing outside my window. there is so much going on, that my brain is just refusing to do much except keep my lungs breathing and my blood pumping. and so, i am giving myself permission to take a break until april...

at least, that was my plan. and then tonight i tried to boil water for eggs...

i can cook. really, i can. i just don't like to do it. i hate it more than i hate doing laundry--and i am not a big fan of laundry. (actually, i don't mind washing and drying the laundry, but the folding and putting away? not my favorite thing to do...) but since we eat those hard boiled eggs for breakfast most mornings, boiling them is a regular task. it has to be done almost every week. and yet, it is never easy.

i know i have written about the whole egg boiling thing before. but the problem is this--if i put water on to boil, and walk out of the kitchen, i will totally forget i am boiling water. i have boiled a 3 quart pan bone dry. more than once. do you know how long that takes?!? but if i stay in the kitchen to wait for it to boil, it takes FOREVER!!! and i lose interest before those little bubbles start popping to the surface, and wander away, only to later discover a very hot, dry pan on my stove.

don't worry. we have smoke detectors. and they work...

once i manage to actually catch the pan with boiling water still in it, i can plop the eggs in, set the timer, and the rest is easy. the hard part is boiling the water...

(i'm sure there is a joke in there, i am just too tired to make the connection.)

yesterday after church, a friend of mine was talking about how she was so excited to go home, because she had some sort of delicious, nutricious (i'm sure it was nutricious--she is a vegetarian,) soup in the crock pot. she could hardly wait to eat the wonderful yumminess. i could tell, her mouth was watering. i looked at her and said, "that's how i feel about my frozen hot pockets." i'm not sure she even knows what a hot pocket is!

my plan, when we move, is to cook more often. even though i hate it. because the truth is, i am getting a little tired of rubio's...

and yet, my plans are not always successful. i've been planning to exercise regularly for the last ten years! i think about it, i prepare to do it, i talk about it, but i still find myself sitting on the couch instead of pumping iron.

i am an excellent planner, but a mediocre implementer--as is evidenced by my plan not to blog in march. because here it is, march 7th, and what am i doing??

i am writing a blog.

so maybe i will actually cook more often after we move. maybe i will actually use my pilates machine a few times a week.

maybe pigs will fly...

;-)


Tuesday, March 1, 2011

breakfast? or a science experiment gone terribly wrong...

so today . . . rollie is in san diego.

i know, we just got back from being out of town, but there are a lot of meetings he has to attend at this time of year. and so he was home sunday and monday (well, actually he wasn't home on monday--he was at work until 10:30 p.m.!) and then he had to leave early this morning to go to san diego for the rest of the week. (don't worry, it isn't always going to be this hectic...) so when he left, i was still in bed, trying to climb out of a deep sleep and into reality. obviously, we didn't exactly have a conversation. rollie pretty much said he was leaving, and i said uh huh, without actually opening my eyes. he left. i blindly found my way into the shower, and then managed to finally wake up enough to get to school.

midway through the morning, i got this text from rollie--"okay, Italicmy wisdom to you today is this: apparently not all boiled eggs are microwave-ready." hmmm, i thought. that was an interesting choice of wisdom to impart. i would have expected something a little more profound. perhaps, i thought, he is still jet lagged.

even though we both eat hard boiled eggs for breakfast, this did not seem like vital information for me to have. i eat them because they are quick--i can grab one out of the refrigerator, throw it into my school bag, and head out the door. then when i get settled at school, i can peel it and eat it, and i don't have to get up 15 minutes earlier to give myself time to eat a real breakfast. rollie eats them because they are part of his healthy breakfast of eggs, cheese, and almonds. but rollie likes his hard boiled egg to be a little warm (i find this pretty gross, but then, he thinks pepper jack cheese is an abomination, so we've learned to be tolerant...) to accomplish warmness in a previously boiled and refrigerated egg, he peels it, and then sticks it in the microwave for a few seconds. he has been doing this for a long time. until today.

today apparently he peeled his egg, put it in the microwave, and when he opened the door a few seconds later, this is what he saw...
he sent me the picture, and then texted, "this was my breakfast."

i died. i laughed and laughed and laughed. i could just picture it... and so i texted back, "HAHAHAHAHA! oh boy... i hope your lunch is better." and then, we finally had a "conversation..."

"i'm glad my disaster gave you a chuckle."
"well, it was a pretty dramatic photo."
"why thank you. hard to believe i am an amateur, isn't it?"
"clearly you are an amateur egg heater upper."
"i was in a hurry!!"
"oh, so it wasn't the egg's fault then? the mess was due to operator error??"
"no wait, you are right--defective egg."
"uh huh..."
"at least i cleaned it up."
"believe me, when i saw the photo, i was grateful for that!!"
"took me ten minutes!"

this is the sort of thing that happens when we cook. perhaps our new house doesn't really need a kitchen. perhaps food preparation should be left to the professionals.

perhaps we should just permanently reserve a table at rubio's...