Saturday, January 7, 2012

mrs. fix it, part 2

**i took pictures to go with this blog, but i am having issues getting them from my phone into the blog, which is why this blog is being posted a few days later than it actually happened. eventually i hope to resolve my problem and add pictures...

so today
. . . i planned to spend the day at home. in my pajamas. doing a few small projects, but mostly huddled up with my computer and new slippers. this was my plan. of course, it was thwarted...

my problems today actually started yesterday. with cleaning the sink. and fixing the plumbing. because during those moments when i couldn't work on the sink, i decided to recover our dining room chairs.

we got our dining room set from rollie's parents a long time ago. i love family heirlooms. they complete me :) this dining room set belonged to rollie's maternal grandmother, who i never met. we got the set from his mom, who got it from her mom. i feel lucky that we got it, because it probably should have gone to rollie's sister--you know, from mom to daughter to granddaughter--but since rollie's sister already had a dining room set, this one found its way to our house.

i love this dining room set. i love the reddish color of the wood. i love the curvy cut out chair backs. i love the way the ends of the table drop down so that it can be really small, (even though i never use it that way.) but when we got it, what i didn't love was the color of the seats. the seats were a rose colored tapestry with little blue accents. they were pretty, but they were pink. sort of. and at the time we got the set, pink was not on my list of decorating colors. i was into black and white and red! i wanted a fabric that would sort of go with the style, but not look dated. and what i found had a sort of black stripe with rows of reddish roses in between.

i loved that fabric, and it has been on those chairs for a lot of years. but over time it has faded. and i was just not loving it in this house. but i left it, because i had told diandra that when she got into her own house, she could have the dining room set. of course, i told her that before we bought this house, when i thought that we were going to downsize and not have enough room for it. but now it is in our new dining room, and it looks so good with the wood floors and the paint... so i talked to diandra and we struck a deal, and i'll be keeping the dining room set. for now. i think.

so, it was time to recover the seats! i remembered this as being a quick and easy project. i looked at my pile of fabric and found a piece that i thought would be perfect! so last night after rollie went to bed, i took the old fabric off one of the chair seats and got it ready to recover. but then i got tired and went to bed.

those chair seats were going to be my first project this morning, because rollie was playing basketball which meant i had to put the sink project off until later in the day. and doing the chair seats first had the added benefit of letting me stay in my pajamas. (in case you are wondering about my sudden attachment to wearing my pajamas around the house, i asked for flannel pajama pants for christmas. and i got some! and adorable "hello, kitty" slippers!! and now, that is all i want to wear. they are comfy, cozy, and cute.) so i unfolded the fabric... only to discover that it wasn't one big piece. it was several smaller pieces, none of which were big enough to cover the chair cushions. this was not a good start to my saturday...

i was bummed. i slouched on the couch for a while, but i finally got dressed and announced to rollie that i was going to do some errands. i had decided to go to lowe's to ask someone about my plumbing issues, but the bigger problem was going to be finding fabric. there are just not a lot of fabric stores around anymore. i had seen one storefront across from the mall that said "rugs! fabrics!" but most days they have a "going out of business" sign outside, which i figured meant a limited selection. but i was desperate, so i went in...

... and the angels sang! there were rolls of fabric everywhere! in every color! but you know how i am about making decisions... i knew i was in trouble. and it got even worse, because as i was walking around i remembered that i had been looking for a shower curtain for the downstairs bathroom, and i needed to recover the headboard on our bed... i was like a rat in a maze--a rat who couldn't make a decision. i put rolls of fabric into my cart. i took rolls of fabric out of my cart. i sent pictures to rollie--which is what saved me! after over an hour, i finally found my way out into the parking lot, with fabric for my dining room chairs AND a shower curtain :) the decision about fabric for our headboard will just have to wait for another day.

then i went to lowe's. i don't go to lowe's very often, because home depot is just around the corner from our house. and lowe's is at the long beach town center, AND the parking lot at the long beach town center is like the seventh level of hell--especially on a saturday. but that one last plumbing fixture was bugging me, so i decided to brave the parking lot in hopes of finding an answer to my problem.

i found the plumbing section and a guy in a red vest. whose name was NOT steve! i showed him the picture i had taken of the underside of my plumbing fixtures and he said, "oh sure! you just have to twist this piece here to tighten your fixture."

now. was that hard? no, it was not. i guess if you know what you are talking about, the solution is easy. and now i had a solution! i made a quick detour through lighting to get a new glass globe for the old ceiling fan that manuel had installed in our downstairs bedroom, and rushed home. i had a solution, and i was anxious to finish up my plumbing project. but when i got home, i was once again thwarted, because rollie was taking a nap. rollie often takes a nap on saturday after playing basketball all morning, which is fine, but today his nap was interfering with my projects!

you know how patient i am (not!) but i tried to wait. first i distracted myself by playing with my new fabrics, but i didn't want to get started on a project and then have to drop it when rollie woke up. so next i decided to change the glass part of the ceiling fan with the new one i had just bought. i took the old one off and tried to put the new one up, only to discover that it was too big. this did not make me happy! now i am going to have to brave the long beach town center parking lot again to return the stupid, non-fitting glass part of the ceiling fan!

unless it accidentally breaks first...

i finally decided i could fix the faucet by myself. i mean, i knew what to do, i just had to figure out how to do it all by myself. i poked around rollie's workbench until i found the spray stuff that would loosen the rust. because of course there was rust! the faucet had been loose which meant water was dripping underneath it sometimes. i squiggled underneath the sink and tried to maneuver the spray into position... and managed to knock the long pointy part off. which meant i had to squiggle out from under the sink to retrieve it, reattach it, and try again. which i did.

(can i just say here that it is no easy task to get positioned under our kitchen sink! there is no room to turn over or around, which means you have to go in on your back. which kills so many muscles that i can't even list them all! and then your torso is elevated about six inches from where your legs are trying to just stay out of the way, which is torturous to your back! and THEN to get out, you have to hold your torso up off the floor while trying to get your head clear of the sink, garbage disposal, and all that tubing, which makes your abdomen scream like an angry toddler. now that i think about it, it is probably pretty good exercise...)

after spraying the loosening goo, i waited a few minutes, grabbed my pliers and tried to twist the tightening piece. it wouldn't budge. but the pliers fell out of my hand and landed on my face. fortunately they didn't hit my eyes. unfortunately, they did hit my expensive glasses. i decided maybe i shouldn't be wearing my expensive glasses while laying under the sink holding a pair of pliers in my hand. so i took them off and attempted to twist the tightening piece again. and again, i dropped the pliers. fortunately this time they didn't hit my face--they hit my shoulder, which was a little too close to my unprotected face for my comfort.

i decided i needed safety glasses.

but i didn't have safety glasses! i know rollie has safety glasses, but he was asleep. so i used my sunglasses instead. i have a pair of those fit-over sunglasses that i can wear over my regular glasses. they are big and ugly, but i have customized them with swarovsky crystals, which makes them cuter... they are still pretty big, though... i was really hoping i wouldn't drop the pliers on them, since the only other pair of sunglasses i have do not have swarovsky crystals on them, and since we live in the land of eternal sunshine, i kind of need sunglasses. but i figured if i was going to drop those pliers again, better to wreck my sunglasses than my eyes...

i worked under that sink for about half an hour. i was getting nowhere fast. it finally became clear to me that this was not a one woman project--i was going to have to wait until rollie woke up. which he finally did. and no sooner did his groggy little head move his recliner into the upright position, than i was right there telling him about my morning... the fabric store... lowe's... the plumbing stuff... how we still needed to hang the bathroom mirror (oh there is a story there too, but i think i will save that for another day.) all the poor man wanted to do was watch a little basketball and let his brain wake up, but he could see that i was in "let's get it done" mode. so he came downstairs, gathered a few tools, and watched me head back under the sink.

we finally got that thing tightened! finally! i was the muscle under the sink, but rollie knew which tools would get the job done. if he hadn't handed me some sort of socket wrench with a bendy handle, and firmly held the faucet in place while i used that tool to tighten it, we would still probably be dealing with a wiggly faucet. or paying someone $500 to replace it!

i came out from under that sink today, and i felt powerful!! i felt awesome! i made rollie high five me, and i said, "WE ROCK!" (yes, to diandra's chagrin, i actually say things like that...) and so, now our kitchen sink is clean and shiny AND the faucets work properly...

...and it looks so good, that now i hate to use it.

Friday, January 6, 2012

mrs. fix it, part 1

so today . . . i had an "if you give a mouse a cookie" evening...

"if you give a mouse a cookie," is a children's book that illustrates how one thing leads to another. which leads to another. and another. and that's what happened to me this evening. it all started with cleaning my kitchen sink...

when we moved into our new house, i determined that i was going to keep it sparkly clean and shiny. this is a bigger challenge for me than you might think. we have two dogs and lots of stuff. this means muddy puppy feet walking on our floors, pet hair taking up residence wherever it can find an unguarded space, and stuff that doesn't really have a place of it's own...which means that it ends up on the dining room table... or the kitchen counter... or the bedroom chair... well, you get the idea. and since i have a regular job, i don't have lots of time to dedicate to keeping up with it all. so sometimes my house threatens to eat me.

but when we moved, i determined that was not going to happen any more! the first step was buying a house that would be easy to maintain, which meant wood flooring instead of carpets. which we did. the second step was not to move all of the stuff. which we didn't. i donated a ton of stuff to charity and filled a small dumpster with the things i was pretty sure no one else would want. the third step was to find a place for everything in the new house--if it didn't have a place, i was going to get rid of it--that way everything could be put away. which i mostly did, but i admit there are still a few things... and the last step was figuring out some sort of system for cleaning. because if i don't have a system, nothing gets done. it doesn't always get done even when i have a system, but at least it has a chance... so i got a microfiber duster, two roombas, a spin mop, and decided i was ready...

...and then i went back to work. and everything house related sort of started falling apart. i managed to keep my head above water, but just barely. so of course i started looking for solutions (that's where the microfiber duster and the spin mop came in.) i made lists. i downloaded apps on my ipad. i cruised the internet. and one day, while cruising the internet, i found a site that said keeping your house neat and orderly all starts with cleaning your kitchen sink. well, i wanted my house to be neat and orderly, but the method of cleaning the kitchen sink sounded very involved! and that's not all--once it was cleaned, you were supposed to keep it clean and shiny every single day! and you know how i am about doing anything every single day. so i chose to ignore this particular site.

which i did. until today. because today i was home all afternoon, and so i decided to put the christmas dishes away. but that meant i had to wash a couple of them, and that put me in close proximity to the sink, which made me start thinking about having a clean sink, and a clean house, and the next thing i knew, i was filling the small sink with hot, bleachy water...

i filled the small sink with hot bleachy water, because i wasn't really sure how this was going to turn out. and our big sink is big! and deep! which means it takes a lot of water to fill it up. so i decided to start with the small sink. i let it soak for an hour. then i followed the rest of the directions for a sparkly clean and shiny sink. and then i moved on to the faucets. and as i was working on the faucets, i realized that they were loose. and the soap dispenser didn't work. so i fixed the soap dispenser (i think,) and scrubbed the faucets, and dried and shined everything up, but those faucets were still loose. and now they were bothering me, because my small sink looked so good!

i thought there had to be a way to tighten them, so i took everything out from under the sink. and put it on the counter. now my previously clean counters were full of stuff, but it was nice and clean under the sink. i flopped down onto the kitchen floor and squiggled my way into the empty cabinet. it was dark in there. and i didn't have a light. so i squiggled back out and got a clip-on flashlight and dove back under the sink.

there is a lot of flexible tubing under my sink. and the sink is extra deep. and there is also a giant garbage disposal under there, which made it hard to move around. which is why i was under the sink instead of rollie. but i knew i was going to need help. i couldn't tighten whatever had to be tightened without someone holding the faucets steady. so i yelled for rollie, and he came to see what i needed. but all he could see were my feet and legs--the rest of me was buried under the sink...

"i need help!" i said. although i'm pretty sure those words weren't necessary. i'm pretty sure that it was fairly clear that i needed help. "what do you want me to do?" he asked. "just hold the faucet still while i try to tighten it up." this sounds simple enough, but over the course of the next half hour, rollie retrieved tools from the garage for me to use, he tried not to step on the part of me that was hanging out of the cabinet, and he finally handed me my phone so i could take pictures of what i was dealing with. because just like everything else that the previous homeowner decided to do himself, these faucets had not been installed exactly according to the directions...

i had rollie pull me out of the abyss, and i announced, "i'm going to home depot. i'm sure i need parts." rollie said, "let's just buy a new faucet. we can have manuel install it." but i had looked fancy kitchen faucets up online--i knew how expensive they were. "no," i said, "i think we can fix it." so i grabbed my phone with the photos i had taken, and the checkbook, and went to home depot.

home depot was no help at all. "yep," steve said, (i think every male employee at home depot is named steve. it may even be a job requirement, because every time i go there for help, the guy's name tag says steve!) "it looks like you need some parts to fix that. we don't sell those parts." of course they don't. "if you know the manufacturer, you might be able to get parts online." thanks, steve, thanks a lot...

i was not ready to give up. i came home and started looking online for my faucets, and miraculously, without a manufacturer or model number, i found them! and then i found installation instructions!! yessss!!! i could see by the installation instructions how to tighten one of the faucet pieces. so i yelled for rollie and stuffed myself back under the sink. i figured out a way to prop my flashlight up so that i could use both hands, and prepared to tighten. but there was a problem. of course. the fitting wouldn't budge.

this is where the expertise of a guy with a fully stocked workbench comes in handy :) "it's stuck," i said. "i can't move it." "wait a minute," rollie said, "i'll be right back." and he disappeared. and i waited. twisted like a pretzel under the sink. but it was worth it, because when he came back, he handed me an aerosol can of something guaranteed to unstick stuff. so i sprayed it (and hoped it wouldn't drip on my face,) and waited. and it worked! i was finally able to tighten the fitting so that one more piece of our faucet was tight. but as i emerged from under the sink, i realized that my shirt and hair were wet. this is never a good thing when you are working under a sink. i felt the floor of the cabinet, and sure enough, there was a good sized puddle. "uh oh," i said to rollie, "i think something is wrong..."

did i mention how many pipes and flexible tubing and stuff were under the sink? and did i mention how i just barely fit under there?? and did i mention that it was impossible to maneuver without bumping into something??? well, apparently in all my squiggling about, i had bumped the drain pipe in the big sink and dislodged the connection. i was now really, really glad that i hadn't filled that sink up with water and bleach to soak! i ran to get towels while rollie reconnected the pipes. and then he went to bed. i think he had reached his "help julie with whatever impossible project she has decided to tackle" limit for the day.

did i mention that rollie gets a little uneasy when i get into "i can fix it!" mode? just because one time i tried to fix the washing machine with a screwdriver without disconnecting it... sheesh.

anyway, now there was only one piece left. this one was going to be a challenge. this was the one that steve at home depot said needed a part that they didn't have. but i had sort of reached my plumbing "fix it" limit for the day since rollie had gone to bed, because that meant there was no one to extract me from under the sink if i decided to go back in...

...which brought me back to cleaning my sink. because i had only done the smaller one earlier, just to see how it turned out. but now that all but one of my faucet components were tightened, i decided to clean the other sink. so i filled it with hot, bleachy water, and waited for an hour, and shined it up, and now it looks beautiful!

of course, now the countertops are filled with all the stuff from under the sink, but i can fix that tomorrow. tomorrow i am going to figure out how to tighten that last faucet component...

...or drown trying!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

is this what rock bottom feels like??

so today . . . i bought meat. from shopping tv.

yes, i have apparently turned into one of THOSE people...

shopping tv is a slippery slope. i started watching it several years ago. i was turning 40 and decided that i was now a grown up and would no longer wear fashion jewelry. i was going for the real stuff or nothing at all. i blame my birthday. and rollie. and our friend ron, who is a jeweler...

i've always loved jewelry. my great-grandpa was a rock hound, and that love for turning an ugly old rock into something beautiful was also a part of my dad's genetic material. he taught earth science to 8th graders, and the kids in his classes were the luckiest ones at highland park junior high school, because if you were in my dad's science class, you got to cut and polish rocks! it was awesome!!

then after we were married for a few years, rollie started buying me nice jewelry for special occasions like my birthday. this was made possible, because we had a friend in our church who was a jeweler--not the kind who owned a jewelry store, but the kind who made and repaired the jewelry for the jewelry stores--he had connections!! and so i got kind of spoiled, because when ron and rollie would put their heads together, the result was always something amazing!

but then we moved. and while ron was still accessible, he was also far away, which complicated the logistics of adding to my collection. and we had moved to a small town, which meant very limited options for jewelry buying.

that's when i discovered shopping tv.

i started out by just watching, you know, just because i enjoy looking at beautiful things. eventually i made a small purchase, and then occasionally after that i would buy something else. it was great! everything looked so sparkly and shiny, and the choices seemed endless!

and then we moved to california where ron was even further away, and i didn't have cable tv. but guess what? i could still get one shopping channel! and since there weren't a lot of other choices, i started watching more shopping tv, just because i like to look at beautiful things!

and then one day, when i was sitting in the family room with my computer, looking for something to watch, i tuned into a show that was selling skin care products. it seemed kind of interesting, and so i watched it. this increased my options, because now i could watch jewelry shows and skin care shows. and it worked out pretty good. i found some skin care products that were reasonably priced, and i bought a pair of earrings or two along the way...

and then i started watching electronics shows, because really, there was quite a lot of good information about electronics in those shows. and you know, sometimes we need electronics, so i figured that the more i learned, the better. and i took that information and used it when it was time to buy a computer or a camera or a tv.

until the day when i actually bought a tv from them...

and then one day, they had a show on with clothes made out of some kind of fabric that they promised wouldn't wrinkle OR attract dog hair! does this sound like some sort of miracle to you?!?! well, it did to me, and so i continued to watch... i didn't buy anything, but i continued to watch, just in case... which led to shoe shows... and handbag shows...

i told you it was a slippery slope...

by now it may be hard for you to believe, but there were some shows that i refused to watch. they just held no interest for me at all! like the cooking shows. what a waste of time, i thought, to sit there and watch people cook when i couldn't eat or even smell the food, AND when i didn't like to cook anyway? and why would you buy cookware from shopping tv when you could get perfectly good pans at target?!? or tj maxx???

and then the inventor who invented the hangers that now fill my closets (oh yes, i guess i forgot to mention when i started watching the closet organizing shows...) invented this new non-stick cookware that is guaranteed up to 850 degrees! and i figured even when i burn something, it probably doesn't exceed 850 degrees! and we were moving into our new house, with our new kitchen, and it just screamed for new pans, and these pans had RED, SPARKLY, non-stick exteriors. and so we bought them...

but still i had standards! although, as you can see, my standards were gradually falling...

i still refused to watch cleaning shows (oh wait, maybe not totally, because i did buy a spin mop...) and christmas in july shows, and coin collecting shows (ok, i did occasionally watch coin collecting shows--especially when they were talking about the state quarters, but i've never purchased any coins!) and toy shows, and underwear shows (yes, they actually sell underwear on tv!) and food shows.

food shows are the worst. first of all, i find most of the food to be ridiculously priced. if i want chocolate chip cookies, i will just go to del taco and get a dozen for $5! i don't need to spend $39.95 and get a cookie jar too! and buffalo burgers?!?! i don't care how healthy they are, i am not buying them from shopping tv and having them shipped to my house! meat in the mail??? that is just wrong!

or so i thought. because last night i was watching shopping tv while cleaning the kitchen (this is a bonus of having the kitchen and family room open to each other,) and they started selling steaks? why didn't i just turn it off? well, my hands were in the soapy water in the sink, and i was almost done anyway, so i just let it run...

they started talking about how these were the only steaks that had been approved with the "heart healthy" label... and then they talked about how lean they were... and then they talked about how many ways you could prepare them... and THEN they gave the price! and you are not going to believe this, but one of those steaks cost less than the sourdough jack cheeseburger i had eaten for lunch! they are petite steaks, but it was still a pretty good price. especially since i NEVER buy steak at the grocery store. if i am going to eat a steak, i am going to eat it in a restaurant where it has been prepared by someone who knows what they are doing! at home we mostly eat hamburger and chicken. so, i thought, this would be a good way to add some variety to my sad and pathetic repertoire of dinners that i can cook...

so i bought the steaks. it took a chunk of my grocery money, but i did the math, and we can eat two of those steaks with some broccoli and salad and have a pretty nice meal for less than it costs us to eat at rubio's! (i know! it's hard to believe!!) we won't be eating them every day, but it will be a nice change of pace from meatballs and chicken quesadillas. i hope...

...because, you see, i do tend to leave things in my freezer, just for the security of knowing that i have food in there. and i am going to have to remember to take them out of the freezer in time so that they can thaw before i need to cook them. and i'm not really sure how to cook them.

but we have meat coming. in the mail.

i think maybe i had better clean out the freezer, and tell rollie that we might need a barbecue after all...

Monday, January 2, 2012

95 years is a looong time to wait...

so today . . . the ducks played in the rose bowl. and won :) and that is all.

(of course that is not all! you have to know there is a story here...)

i don't watch sports very much anymore. i don't actually watch tv that much... mostly i listen to it and glance at it as i am doing other things. but when you are watching a football game or a basketball game, you kind of have to keep your eyes on the tv, which sort of puts my multi-tasking out of commission. this is not true with baseball. sometimes you can "watch" a whole baseball game without ever looking at the tv, and not miss a thing...

i have found that i enjoy watching sports a whole lot more when i am watching with other people. when we lived in southern oregon, we watched every trailblazer game that was on. mostly we watched with our friends, ron and joanne--sometimes at our house and sometimes at theirs. and pizza was usually involved... but then we moved to southern california, and finding fans who share my love of oregon teams is somewhat difficult. not to mention, finding televised games of oregon teams is not all that easy either, when you don't have cable...

but today, the stars aligned, and this morning rollie asked me, "do you want to watch the ducks game with me?" it stopped me in my tracks. rollie never asks me to watch a game with him--mostly because he chooses to cheer for the evil lakers, and he is smart enough to know that we might not be able to live in the same house any more if we ever lose our minds long enough to try watching a laker game together... but he was talking about the ducks. and unless the ducks are playing usc, we can both cheer for them.

however... even though i don't usually watch sports with rollie, i can hear him watching them. you may wonder how i can hear him watching something?? it's easy. whenever there is a really terrible call or a really spectacular play, he makes noise. let's just say he gets somewhat emotionally involved with his sports teams...

but i really, really wanted to watch the ducks today. it's the rose bowl, for goodness sake! and i really, really didn't want to watch it by myself. but i also really, really didn't want to watch it if the ducks were going to lose, and make rollie feel cranky! (i get cranky when i don't get my carbs, and rollie gets cranky when his teams lose. don't judge.) so when he asked me if i wanted to watch the game, i said yes, but only if he could promise me he wouldn't get too personally involved. he looked at me like he had no clue what i was talking about! "you know," i said, "i want to have fun watching the game, and it won't be fun if you get cranky." "i won't get cranky," he said. "the game is scheduled to start at 2:00, so i will tivo it and then we can start watching about 3:00." he said this with a big smile on his face, like it was the greatest idea ever. "oh," i said, "then no, i don't want to watch with you..."

ok, now before you all start sending rollie letters of sympathy because he is married to me, let me explain. rollie NEVER watches his sports live. he ALWAYS tivos them. and then, when he watches them, he zips through the commercials, half time, and any slow parts of the game--like replays! he watches a lot of sports, and this method allows him to keep up with all his teams and still have a life. but this is not how i like to watch a game. so i said, "i can't watch that way. my brain needs time to process. i need to talk about what is happening. i might need to go get a snack... or two, depending on how long the game is!" he looked at me like he thought i might be from another planet, (i am! men are from mars, women are from venus... duh!) but for some reason, he agreed to my unreasonable demands--and if you need proof that he loves me, there it is!

but i love him too, so while i was on my way to 7-11 to get my personal supply of diet lemon cokesi for the game, i decided i could probably live with zipping through the commercials and half time, if we could just let the rest of the game play. (see? i am not totally unreasonable! i can compromise... unless you want me to watch a laker game--i do have standards, you know.) so at 3:00, we settled in with our leftover orange chicken and sodas to watch the game.

as the game started, the camera panned across the field. "i've been there, you know," i said. i say this every time i get the chance. "yes," he said, "i know. you've been there. you have a picture of the grass." "i don't just have a picture of the grass--i actually STOOD on the grass. right in the middle of that field. and then i took a picture." it is necessary for me to remind him of this, because when we were in college, rollie traveled all over europe with a singing group. and when we are watching movies that are set in italy or spain or portugal (to name a just a few of the countries he has been in,) he always says, "i've been there!" this is interesting information the first 20 times you hear it, but after being married more than 30 years... well, you know, i am sorry to say sometimes my eyes roll--all on their own, of course. until a few years ago, my only opportunity to utter those same words was when watching field of dreams, which is set in iowa, i think. because i've been there. to iowa... and to the rose bowl :) did i mention that i stood in the middle of the field :))

it was a good game! i mean, i can say that now, since it is over and we won. my idea of a good game is when my team gets way ahead early, and then stays ahead. this was not that kind of game. touchdown after touchdown was scored! penalties were called. players were hurt. rose bowl records were shattered! and i talked. and talked. and cheered. and talked.

rollie was oddly silent. i finally said, "you are never going to ask me to watch a game with you again, are you?" he just looked at me and smiled. "i am being calm," he said, "i'm not getting too involved." "ok," i said, "that's good, but i need to talk about the game and what is happening and how i feel about it. i need some communication and interaction here!" and so the game went on. and we got a little emotionally involved...

but thankfully we were cheering for the same team to win. and thankfully the team we were cheering for did win--for the first time since 1917! it was pretty awesome. (and i'm pretty sure it only happened because i finally found my duck tshirt and put it on!)
so now i am thinking we should watch more sports together. i can cheer for the angels :) if we ever get a professional football team in la, i can cheer for them. i can probably even cheer for usc, unless they are playing the ducks. or the beavers. (rollie is probably reading this and thinking OH NNOOOOO! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?) i see lots of afternoons and evenings in our future, eating snacks and sodas, watching sports together, talking, and cheering our team on...

... as long as it isn't basketball...

Sunday, January 1, 2012

my anti-resolutions...

so today . . . is the first day of a brand new year. and the first day of a brand new month. AND the first day of a brand new week.

it just screams out for resolutions, doesn't it :)

i mean, that is kind of the ultimate trifecta of new beginnings. it is taking everything within me NOT to make any resolutions under these conditions. my ocd tendencies love the symmetry of it, but i know that making resolutions is a complete waste of time for me. i am the queen of good intentions, but when it comes to actually accomplishing things, let's just say there is some room for improvement...

and so, for the first day of 2012, here is a list of THE TOP TEN THINGS I AM NOT GOING TO TRY TO ACCOMPLISH IN 2012!

10. i will NOT try to exercise every day. it is never going to happen. i hate to exercise. i know it is good for me, but until exercise equals some sort of pay-off (and no, improved health apparently doesn't count in my world,) it will not be happening every day. now, if eating chocolate chip cookies was good for my health, i could probably commit to that! then again, maybe not. maybe i am just not programmed to do anything every single day... until i die...

9. i will NOT try to eat healthier. i've done that. the truth is, my eating habits have improved. but the truth also is, i love carbs and i tend to get a little cranky when i don't get them. so then i give in and eat chocolate chip cookies from del taco by the dozen or a whole tub of costco cream puffs in one day. i'm pretty sure that is really not good for me. so i've decided that no food is off limits any more. (except spinach. and squid. i'm pretty sure those foods will kill me!) i'll just try to eat whatever i want, but maybe not all at one time...

8. i will NOT watch less tv. i like to watch tv. my mom hardly watches any tv at all. i don't know how she does it! she says there isn't that much on that she enjoys watching, but my tivo is almost always busy recording stuff for me to watch. and there are so many choices! this morning i watched a show on the science channel called "how things are made." did you know that when they harvest the tiny peppers for tabasco sauce, they have to do it by hand? and before they pick a tiny pepper, they have to match it's color to a red stick that they carry around with them? i am serious, people!! and then, they put millions of those tiny peppers into wooden barrels and let them ferment for three years before they make them into tabasco sauce!!! who knew? and don't even get me started on how cheese graters are made...

7. i will NOT be on time for work. i've tried. it is impossible. i'm pretty sure that even if i lived in my car in the parking lot of my school, i would be late (and also smelly...) i am on time sometimes. i am even occasionally early. but i am done stressing while i sit at a red light, or worrying all the way to work about whether my time card will read 8:00 or 8:03 (or 8:12, but that doesn't happen too often.) because it doesn't seem to matter what time i get up, or what i have to do in the morning, i am almost always a few minutes late.

6. i will NOT blog every day. i would like to. and i know some of you would like me to, too :) i did it for a while. but now that i am walking the dogs and trying to cook dinner, there are days when i have to choose between blogging and getting into bed before midnight. (ok, i guess even when i wasn't walking the dogs and cooking dinner, there were still days when i had to choose between blogging and getting into bed before midnight. the difference now is that i've finally realized i need to sleep worse than i need to blog. which is unfortunate, because i like to blog more than i like to sleep!) don't worry though, i won't STOP blogging. ever. i just won't be doing it every single day. probably.

5. i will NOT try to solve everybody's problems. i want all the people i love to be happy and healthy. obviously! and so, when there is a problem, i want to fix it. i don't think that is unusual for a mom-sister-daughter-wife-friend. but i can't do it. even if i have a perfectly good solution, i can't make the people i love take my perfectly good advice. so this year, i am going to be saying "ok, God, i trust you with this" a lot more than i'm going to be saying "why don't you try this!" to my friends and family. it isn't going to be easy. i've been giving it a trial run for the last two weeks, and it isn't easy. sometimes i have to say it over and over and over again... and then staple my lips shut...

4. i will NOT mail christmas cards out. it has been years since i have actually mailed cards out anywhere close to christmas. it isn't that i don't want to communicate with people and share the joy of christmas--i LOVE getting christmas cards--it's just that i never seem to get it done! for one thing, every year it gets harder to find a card that expresses what christmas is all about AND has a pretty enough picture that i want to spend my money on it... and then there are all those decisions about who to send cards to... and writing a christmas letter that is informative without sounding whiny or braggy... (i know braggy isn't really a word, but it fit the pattern. and you know, snarky wasn't a word until i invented it, and now it is used everywhere! so maybe braggy will catch on...) and then actually going to the post office (which i hate almost as much as going to the dentist...) and yet, every year i think i will do it. and then i don't. and i feel so guilty...

3. i will NOT try to accomplish everything in one year. maybe i won't try to accomplish anything in one year! (ok, that isn't going to happen--i am too co-dependent on my lists to try not to accomplish anything. i am embarrassed by the number of list-making and organizational apps i have on my iproducts. i need to know i have a plan, even if i know i will never complete it...) i accomplished a lot this year. i thought that once i had made the move to the new house, and had purged a whole patio full of stuff, and was unpacked, that i would finally be done cleaning out and organizing my house. i thought i would finally just get to live in my house, knowing where everything was and able to find whatever i needed. but it didn't quite turn out that way... i'm still organizing and finding better places for things. and it doesn't seem to matter how much we do to the house, the list of things to be done continues to grow. so i am just going to have to wrap my brain around the fact that i will never be done with my "to do" list. ever.

2. i will NOT make any big changes. there were times when i thought 2011 was going to kill me. as i said yesterday, 2011 was all about change, and i hate change! i felt unsettled and off balance for most of the year. i had to adjust to a lot of new circumstances, and although many of them were actually good circumstances, you know how my brain works... and so 2012 is going to be the year of maintaining the status quo. i'm going to spend this next year settling into the way my life is now, with all of it's changes from the last year. i'm not going to be pushing forward, and hopefully i won't be falling back. in 2012 i'm just going to sit on the back of the bicycle built for two, and coast...

and the number one thing i will not try to accomplish in 2012...

1. i will NOT take my life for granted. i have friends who lost people they loved dearly this past year. i have friends who have battled with health issues. i have friends who have had to deal with difficult family relationships. i have friends who have been on the wrong end of downsizing. we don't live in a world full of warm fuzzies any more, and none of us knows what tomorrow is going to bring! but... i have a family who loves me more than i deserve. i have a steady paycheck (well, except for the summers...) i have a pretty cute roof over my head and more food than i need to eat. i don't have any debilitating health issues. i can pretty much do what i want to do.

and so in 2012, i'm going to! i'm going to call my mom and dad more often... wear flannel pajama pants around the house... go to the beach... smile more often at rollie... eat at new places... wear perfume... watch girly movies with diandra... wear my party dresses... spend more time on the patio with my kindle... buy fresh flowers... and learn to dance, all by myself...

...just because it makes me happy :)