Annoying Me
There are no department stores in the city right now. Lord & Taylor and Strawbridges are both closed.
I need some new sparkly jewelry to go with
this dress. I'm usually a pearl kind of girl, but I'm thinking not with this dress. Maybe something silver or rhinestone-y. What do you think?
Not that there's anywhere in the city to buy costume jewelry right now anyway.
Disturbing
They say the scale doesn't lie. Well, I'd like to shoot them. And the scale, for that matter.
Somehow I'm now 5 pounds heavier than last month. Which is more than I've weighed in awhile. What's most disturbing is that I've gained 10 pounds since the wedding. I'm not even sure how that's possible. It's only been two months. At this rate, it will not be a pretty site, 4 or 5 months from now.
So I'm going to try to take stock of what I'm doing wrong. I don't feel like I've been eating any worse than usual. I mean, overall, I eat pretty well. But since I don't diet and don't believe in obstaining from dessert, it's not like it's all healthy eating either. And there are the cocktails, which most likely don't help.
And while I didn't work out for two weeks while we were away and while I was slow to get back on the bandwagon after that, I did get back on. Well, not as hardcore as pre-wedding. I had been going regularly, but only in the evenings. I need to add some mornings back in. Since I've been out of town several weekends, I guess I've been skipping a lot of my weekend cardio too.
To add insult to injury, my darling husband looks at me this weekend and says, "You know, you've lost some of the definition in your arms." Granted, I knew that, because I was only lifting once a week and to keep up that kind of definition, you just need to do it regularly. But I still didn't want other people noticing I lost definition. So it's back to lifting.
Sooo..... Mondays are morning workouts and evening workouts. Tuesdays are morning cardio and evening Pilates. Wednesdays are morning and evening. Thursdays are morning cardio and evening Pilates. Friday is morning only. Saturday is power yoga and Sunday is stretching. Lifting should occur Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
I am however flexible. I can opt to skip one cardio session a week (this usually seems to be a morning for me) and I can skip pilates if going out with friends. In fact I can skip any evening, as long as I go that morning. And I can add in a Friday evening cardio if I know I'll be away Saturday and Sunday. And it really doesn't matter what days lifting happens, as long as it's 3 days a week and ideally, there should be a non-lifting day in between each.
All this so I can eat shoestring fries and nachos whenever I want.
Song of the Day
Because it's stuck in my head is "Where'd You Go" by
Fort Minor.
The Addiction
We spent at lovely weekend at the trailer. Down by the river.
The weather was lovely, maybe even a little too warm. It was quiet. Despite there being four TVs in the place (the only room not having one is the bathroom), we rarely turned them on. Which inspired me to declare that we should watch less TV when we're home. Which caused all the color to drain from Ron's face.
True be told we don't watch a lot of TV by today's standard. Ron usually watches it from about 9-11pm each night and sometimes watch with him during those hours. I also watch CNN for an hour in the morning. While there are some shows that Ron loves (
24, CSI (any city
), Without a Trace) , some that I like (
House Hunters) and some that we both enjoy (the
Office and
Scrubs), there are definitely nights when we're flipping through channels just trying to find something, anything to watch. There are nights when I don't have anything to do and I absent-mindedly flips through those clip shows on VH1. Even shows like
24 --we routinely comment on how bad that show is and yet we watch it.
That being said, there are lots of times we miss these shows. I've never recorded a show (I have a sister-in-law who tapes soap operas each day and I find this strange). I don't get upset when I miss something on TV. So I do have some hope that I'm not totally addicted.
So first thing's first: I'm canceling our premium cable channels, HBO and Starz. Since we have digital cable there are like 9 of each of those channels. And you know what else? There's never anything on them.
Next I'm going to try to stay minimize my TV viewing to 2 hours a day. Since I watch an hour of CNN in the morning, that limits my evenings to 1 hour. Since it's the summer (for all intents and purposes) and TV is crap now anyway, this shouldn't be too hard.
More reading. More being outside. Less being a slug.
Hee
I kind of want this
t-shirt. Because going to events for Ron's work kind of make me feel that way. But not in a bad way.
House
See,
this is what I mean. That house has the whole "house package". It' s good size and I love the details: the wood floors, the crown molding, the high ceilings. Of course it would need some changes, but nothing major. Unfortunately, the location is a problem. It's nice enough block but that section of town varies greatly block to block. As Ron says, "It's great once you're there. It's getting there that's the problem." Since I'm an avider walker and walk
everywhere, including to and from work, the surrounding blocks are really important.
The hunt continues.
Tids and Bits
House-hunting will be the end of me. Seriously, it makes me want to tear my hair out. The few houses in our price range are either great houses in wacky neighborhoods or tiny, oddly-formatted houses in great neighborhoods. The first house we saw was actually the best, but of course it's taken us this long to figure that out and now it's under agreement.
Sigh.
In other news, I bought
Doris after spending an hour repeatedly trying on that dress and
Blaire. Of course as soon as I walked out of the store with Doris, I wanted Blaire. I actually think Blaire looks pretty decent on me and it's a dress unlike any other dress I have. Doris is beautiful and a very unique color, but as far as style goes, I have at least 4 other strapless, A-line, knee length dresses.
Sigh.
Land of the Free
So I like the new Dixie Chick song. So do some of my friends. I like the song as sort of a stand alone thing though. If I think about its actual meaning, it seems kind of whiny to me. But, hey, you're free to write and sing whatever you want there, Natalie.
And that's what got me from the beginning with this whole Dixie Chicks thing. Admittedly, I only half-paid attention to it at the time.
Of course, Natalie had a right to say she was ashamed of the president or ashamed that he was from Texas or whatever. This is freakin' America after all. But Natalie, honey, other Americans had the equal right to say whatever they want about your statements, to react to them. Did you not get the memo that maybe not everyone would agree with you? And that's okay Natalie, not everyone has to agree with you. It doesn't make your opinion any less valid. So why are you so enraged by the backlash to your statements? Don't be a baby, just because some people didn't like what you had to say. That's life, honey.
I mean it did get a little ridiculous, DJs boycotting her music and all. But still, other people were for whatever reason ticked off by Natalie's statements and voiced their displeasure with not only their voices but also their pocketbooks. You know what? I don't think it hurt the Dixie Chicks too much anyway.
I'm sure she's explained this in some interview, but who is Natalie referring to when she sings "Forgive...sounds good. Forgive...I'm not sure I could (would)"? Is it the president? Or the public? DJs? Whoever or whatever it is, it makes her sound a little self important.
The video's amazing. And I do get sucked in by the song. If it's supposed to be something that falls in the anti-war genre that's just fine. But if it's just a rant about this whole freedom of speech thing, time to move on. Which according to the song, she just can't do.
Being The Only One Sucks Sometimes
So several weeks ago, my boss sent an invitation to me and everyone else who reports directly to him for us to join him on his boat to see the
Blue Angels this week down in Maryland. I declined this invitation last year. I declined it again this year.
This trip would involve leaving town tomorrow afternoon, having dinner with everyone involved tomorrow night and then spending all day Wednesday on the boat. I like all the people who are invited, but the problem is this: everyone else who's invited is male and over the age of 50. Should that matter? No. But it does.
To a lesser extent I don't want to go because I really do have a lot of work to get done. But a part of me really does want to go on this trip, not only because, politically, it's the right thing to do, but also because I've worked hard to fit in with this group and avoiding social events like this don't really help matters. I've dealt with quite a bit of ribbing from the guys about not going. I've given all the professional reasons why I can't go. I even coyly said that they would have more fun without me tagging along. I even once said, in jest because I can do that with this group now, "You want me to spend a solid day and a half with you guys? Please, I'd rather stick a fork in my eye."
The thing is, they all sincerely want me to go. And for that reason alone I want to go. But...well, I just don't think I can. They all think it's because my husband won't let me. But really, it's just that it's too damn weird for me to be with older men for that long a period of time. Does that make me immature? I feel immature. I also know that in the eyes of some, this is a test to see what I'm really made of and I'm failing.
Because when it comes to the political environment of an institution, the good work you produce is only half of what you're judged on.
The Bad Habit
Right before the wedding, I was rewarding myself for not freaking the fuck out by indulging in some tasty treats. These included those frozen coffee drinks from Starbucks and Cosi. I've since gotten away from those. But the bad habit that's stuck with me is that I'm still having a muffin from WaWa every morning at work. First, it's chocolate chip. Second, it's as big as my head. Since I have a bowl of whole grain cereal in the morning before work, having a big ol' muffin two hours later is really some carb overload. Yet, I feel like I need to munch on something while I drink my coffee. Donuts are out, because I've gone down that slippery slope before. And it's not exactly like something healthy like fruit goes with coffee.
So my plan is to play this little head game with myself called "Justification by the Day of the Week". On Monday, I can have a muffin, because Mondays are hard and I deserve a little extract boost that day. I might be able to justify the same for Tuesdays and Wednesdays (Wednesdays are the most productive day of the week for me and hence I deserve a treat). There's really no excuse to have a muffin on Friday, because it's Friday, the day before the weekend. Since nothing can really go too wrong on a Friday, because it's an inherently good day, no muffin for me. And since Thursday is the day before Friday, I should say the same thing about Thursday--no muffin.
Slowly, I might be able to wean myself off these things. Having put some weight back on post wedding as well as having taken it easy on the workouts, I'd like to get my body back in tip top shape for summer. Although I have been back at the gym regularly now, mornings are proving particularly difficult for some reason. This morning I skipped going for no good reason at all.
And the big chocolate chip muffin is not helping.
Fancy Schmancy
People, can we talk? I need dress advice. I need a dress for Ron's upcoming resident dinner gala at the Ritz (see? I said it was fancy). We missed the one last year because we were on vacation getting engaged (sidenote: isn't it weird that I haven't even been engaged for a year yet and I'm already
married?). Anyway, as usual, my go-to place for dresses is my one true love: Ann Taylor.
Here are the options:
NatashaDorisBlaireMagnoliaJuliaKimWhat do you think?
I'm the most drawn to Blaire, even though I've never really been able to wear halters without looking like Sir Frumpsalot. For some reason I'm drawn to this one, but would definitely need to try it on. I love Julia, and black is safe, particularly for a cocktail-type party, but it's spring and I'd like some color. I also love Magnolia, but I do have a black and white flowered dress. Two black and white flowered dresses actually, so I should probably stay away from this one (for the record the two I already own are very different style dresses). And Kim is cute but almost too casual. Doris is just screaming with color (I'm not sure I can pull that off) but I am a sucker for duponi silk.
And in case you're wondering, no, I cannot already wear one of the dresses I already own. Please. With all the weddings we go to, everyone's already seen me in every single one of those dresses.
Jewel
The new
Jewel video makes me want to stab myself in the eye. It's so....cream. She's so blonde in a cream nightie-thing, against cream wheat field or some shit, holding cream and brown photos. The whole thing makes no goddamn sense and I find it irritating.
Crazy
This has nothing to do with the post below, but have you ever tried to have someone committed? It's harder than you would think.
I love my job.
Happy Mother's Day
Sometimes I wonder why I talk to the woman at all, since I effectively get my head ripped off and handed to me. Someone needs therapy and it's not me. And I mean that in the most sincere and concerned way possible.
It's amazing that anger can do to a person. I mean really. It's amazing.
The Dark Cloud
Two days before the wedding, Ron's sister, who is pregnant with her second child, found out that there is a problem with the baby. Possibly several problem, ranging from defects requiring surgery to an actual syndrom. The doctors were leaning towards it being a syndrom that comes with heart and kidney defects, lowered IQ, and a host of development problems. It definitely cast the wedding in a different light.
By the time we got back from the honeymoon, there had been additional tests and the chances had been lowered to a 15% that the baby had the condition. The tests showed that while the baby definitely did have the heart and kidney defects, it didn't have the chromosome commonly associated with the condition. The baby would still need surgery within a day of being born, but still, it was a better prognosis.
Then on Monday, Ron's sister had more tests at a different hospital that has a program that specializes in this particular condition. They upped the baby's chances to 50% of being afflicted. Not good news.
Then yesterday, Ron's sister was admitted for preeclampsia. They're running more tests today to see if she'll be confined to bed rest at home or will need to remain in the hospital until she delivers. Depends on how high her pressure is and also, how well she responds to rest. You may know that the only way to cure preeclampsia is to deliver the baby. Ron's sister is not due until the beginning of August. The baby's cardiologist--yup, unborn child already has a cardiologist--says that baby needs to stay put for at least another 5 weeks. Which may or may not be possible, depending on the preeclampsia.
So now the baby has heart and kidney defects, may or may not have a serious development condition and now is mostly likely going to be born pre-mature.
Ron's sister is one of the sweetest people I know. It's just not fair.
Random Things
Seriously, I'm deeply concerned about K-Fed's apparent plan to re-populate the world with his children. I'm also bothered by Britney (brace yourself for a rant). She either 1. is too fucking stupid to use birth control properly; 2. has totally lost her mind and thinks having two children so close together is a good idea; 3. is under the mind-control of K-Fed and his master plan to take over the world. Britney, honey, civilized people don't have babies back to back at age 24. Then again, civilized people make sure that their kids are in car seats and they don't walk into public bathrooms without shoes. Maybe the word I'm looking for here isn't civilized. It's educated.
It turns out the entire city of Toronto dumps its trash in Michigan. Every day 350 trucks with compacted trash cross the border and dump trash in a U.S. landfill. Why on earth do we need freaking Canada's trash? In exchange for 2 million dollars a year it turns out. Can't we just send some trash back to Canada? How about we sent Britney to Canada?
I'm still not understanding the illegal immigrant debate. I've been watching all the news reports, particularly those covering "A Day with Immigrants". But I didn't see any coverage of what's preventing this immigrants from applying to be here legally. Don't you think that should be covered? Is it a quota issue or a money issue, or what? I'd like to know. All I saw was people ranting that they don't have the same rights as citizens, and yet no one was talking about why they can't become citizens. Or permanent residents. Can we start talking about that? I'm glad the illegals protested. Protests are a right in this country. They even took their kids out of school for the day. Excellent.
Nothing
That's what I did this weekend. For the first time in a couple of months, we had nothing planned all weekend. It was exactly what I needed.
That's not to say that I really did nothing. Ron thinks I'm incapable of actually doing nothing. I tend to agree. I've become a bit like my father in recent years in that I find myself needing to be in motion more often than not.
So Friday night, Ron and I, completely drunk with a new sense of freedom, went to the
Grace Tavern. Not much to look at it, but man, it has some seriously good fries. I mean frites. And since Ron and I have adopted the Dutch habit of dunking everything in mayo, we were delighted that these frites came with a garlicky mayo goodness.
Saturday I did laundry, then we hit the Rittenhouse Festival for about an hour, then went to pick up Ron's car which had been getting fixed, THEN we went to Target for a much-needed household supply run. Then we went to Applebee's for some piss poor excuse for dinner.
Sunday found Ron studying, while I went to the park to read recipes, get some sun and make a shopping list. Ron and I abhor grocery shopping but we went anyway and I always feel a sense of satisfaction when the house is full of food. Ron also visited our church to see (read: verbally threaten) our priest who now has mysteriously found our marriage license.
Best of all, I got to go to my yoga class with Norah Saturday morning and my stretching class on Sunday morning. I hadn't been able to go to either in weeks--actually the stretching class I haven't been to in months. We always seemed to be running somewhere early the last few months and I never got to go to my weekend classes. And since my hamstrings are about as flexible as concrete, I really need that stretching class. Apparently Norah felt like torturing us with strength training. I loved every second of it.
So that's us doing nothing.
Hairspray
First off, it's lovely weather today and I'd much rather outside than stuck in the hellhole I like call work.
I have a meeting today with a real estate agent who's going to laugh in my face about us wanting to buy a house. If you total our student loans, Ron and I have a combined loan debt of close to $300,000. Fun, right? And they're not going to care that in 3 years Ron's salary will equal that amount. Sigh. It never ceases to amaze me about how our combined salary now, that is more than either of our parents ever made (even if you adjust for inflation) leaves us so poor. It sucks.
I also have a love/hate relationship with my hair stylist. Sometimes I love what he does, sometimes I'm convinced he doesn't know what he's doing. Mostly I love him. Last night I loved my hair. Today I'm lukewarm about it. The difference is last night it was straightened and today it's curly, somewhat resembling a mushroom cloud. I love the color, but how do you short-haired people do it? I refuse to spend enough time on my hair to straighten it every day.
Rant over. I'd like to go outside now please.
Baby News
Ha! That title is just to fuck with you. There is no baby news.
I admit that I didn't really realize that mentioning vitamins on the internet would lead people to believe that I was talking about prenatal vitamins. Obviously, I am an idiot.
Of course they're prenatal vitamins. But I'm not really trying to get pregnant. There are a couple of reasons. First, Deidre's wedding is less than a year away and although I'd rather not be pregnant at all for it, I certainly don't want to be 9 months pregnant for it. Or even 8 months. I don't want to be uncomfortable. Hell, I'd rather not look like I'm wearing a tent either. And while starting a family may be important, it's my body, it'll be one of my best friends' wedding and I just don't feel like being miserable.
Second, I'd like to have one more summer o'fun before my life becomes completely and utterly fun-less.
The real reason I'm taking vitamins is because for the first time in nearly 10 years I'm not taking "the pill". I've been wanting to stop taking it for awhile now, because there are side effects and frankly, because I've been on it for so long that I forgot what I'm like not on it. When I first started taking it, I know it did change me somewhat, but I can't remember exactly what those changes were. Being more emotional, for sure. I never cried at commericals before the pill.
The first week pill-less, I was exhausted. I have no idea why other than my hormones were probably screwy. Otherwise, so far so good. What I'm not looking forward to is a little game called "guess-when-your-period's-coming". Because on the pill I could pinpoint its arrival down to the hour. That was a nice luxury. Now I'm carrying tampons everywhere I go. There, isn't all this more than you wanted to know about me?
But because I'm not on said pill and because the doctor says you should take prenatals months before thinking about getting pregnant, I am in fact taking these huge horse-pill vitamins that smell like hamster food.
Reasons 1 and 2 as indicated above for not getting pregnant point to the overall reason to postpone pregnancy. I am selfish. I'm not looking for positive reinforcement. I'm comfortable with my selfishness. I like my life, my lifestyle and the freedom it allows me and I know having kids forever alters that. There are many women out there who seem to have an overwhelmingly positive, if not completely unrealtistic view on having a baby: they see cute cuddliness, the cooing, the baby smell, the adorable outfits. I take things to the other extreme and see mostly dirty diapers, the crying and the inability to go anywhere without hauling 27 pieces of equipment with me.
So not quite really at the baby stage yet. Just the vitamin stage. For now.
