Benches Before Work
Trying to be quick before work today. I have been off for several days now and I am kind of dreading going back. I like staying home. But I like money too so… This is Little Red Riding Hood. It has a back too. All of the benches have backs obviously, but some of them are decorated with something extra. This is one of them.
This bench has texture and depth and it’s really kind of cool. The next one is kind of plain like the Snow White one, so it gets second tier post status. Aren’t I just Judgey McJudgey over here. My site. My opinions. This is Let Down Your Hair. The Rapunzel story.
That takes care of 2 more. We are at 6/20. Next up is our intermission pictures. There is/was a Dodge, now Fiat, dealership in the middle of town that always has something we like to take a picture of. So we wasted about 15 minutes there, looking at cars, while my girl complained that this is NOT what we came here to look at! She was right. Plus it was scorchingly hot on all that black asphalt. But I still took too long to take a photo of a Super Bee Charger. 392 Hemi. $46,000. Black as night paint. Called “Pitch Black”. I’ll just put those pics here to save time. The front. And the logo. That’s all anyone cares about anyway.
That should lead me nicely into Zoo pictures and Beach pictures. And also fishing, flowers, clouds, sky, birds, wildlife, and some landscape pictures that I teased with, but never posted. My goal in the next few days, (weeks?), is to get this “current” photo folder clear before it gets cold again, and before the kids go back to school. I haven’t even mentioned my summer slim down plan or what I am doing to achieve my goals for skinniness and less B/P medicine. Big fat nothing, that’s what. I am eating less. It’s only working a little bit. And very slowly. Cardio is the thing. At least that’s what the doctor said. It’s always cardio. Let me stop here and try and figure out the next post. I have to shower and do another load of laundry before I go. I may or may not post overnight. I have to get up early tomorrow to take my girl on her annual summer trip to my sister’s house for a week before school starts. And I desperately need my hair colored. I look old. Yucky gray roots. I miss my hair that used to grow in all the same color. Not fair. Then me and the boy are going to meet the BF for lunch at his work. Don’t we seem busy? Monday funday. Then I have to work all week. All week. Man. And the boy has his last week of football camp. Ok I think that’s enough of the list of things to do from one small woman in the world. If you are still reading, THANK YOU! I wish I had prizes or something, but it’s just this. Beep beep beep beeeep. Blast. That’s the timer. Measuring out my life in minutes. Load change. Shower up. Sprinkler switch. STOP. TYPING. !! Gotta go. Later.
Sky Shots. Bird On A Wire. Houses.
Just random pictures. I wanted something new here before I go to work. I have a potential 2-3 days off ahead, but I wanted to freshen up the site for any straggling viewers. And I actually need to go in a bit early to let one of the other girls leave so I better stop typing and hit the showers. We’ve been busy while the kids were gone and even busier since they came back. (Early return! Yay!) The yard is ship-shaping and my flowers are not dead anymore. You can read (and see) all that later in the week. Exciting stuff ahead as we roll into mid-July. But for now, one more shift. Later.
Prepared To Be “WOW”-ed!!
Very first pic with the new phone. Standing in a parking lot, looking up at a light pole, and capturing that seagull, sitting there, peaking out over the top. Score! It was luck actually. The next pic I took was of the same light pole, but with no bird. I think that most of the pictures I take involve some kind of bird. That’s probably weird right? Anyway, I was testing the zoom and the acuity. Not bad. I must experiment more. In case you are wondering, it’s the Samsung Galaxy S4. (Shout Out!) And I’m not even gonna lie…it’s a realllly nice phone. It’s probably the best phone I have ever owned. My daughter has the IPhone and LOVES it. Really really loves it. Like, it sleeps on a pillow next to her head, loves it. (I am pretty sure I have a picture of this) And she is jealous of this new phone and grudgingly admits that it might be better than hers. Win!
I will bring you more, equally exciting and powerful shots, as the days go on. I haven’t had much time off since I got this phone so it’s mostly been getting used to it and putting all my stuff back on that I now need to function daily. You know, real important things, like my e-mail accounts (I have 2–Yahoo and G-Mail), Tiny Village (only game I decided to keep from the old phone–a smart move I think. Obviously I waste a lot of time with pointless other things), Facebook, Instagram, You Tube, LinkedIn (because I am a professional dammit!), and Twitter. Did I mention that I have a twitter account now? Well, I do. That’s another whole story. #justshyofpretty. Of course. I’m going to make this my thing until I die. I don’t even have a custom ringtone yet! The shame! It seriously took me, 2 or 3 days, just to get all the tones and alerts for notifications and alarms straightened out. If you pick the wrong sound it can just keep playing and playing until you physically touch the the phone. And every single separate “feature” has its own separate tone/alert/notification setting to set. I think I got everything I actually use set up. Now I figure I will just wait for something to ring or buzz on the phone and adjust it as it comes up.
Here is one truth though, that I will share about all this technology, and something that I never even saw coming: The worst part about getting this new phone is that I feel old all of a sudden. Like, “aging-ly” old. That’s not a word, but us old folks can make them up whenever we want now. Feeling my mortality, I think they say. When I had this brand new phone in my hand and I was trying to make it work, and couldn’t, I really felt like I was about to join the age train and it was going to choo-choo-chug me away to the techno graveyard for the decrepit and clueless. I never have enough time to learn the phone, I can’t see the damn screen without reading glasses, I apparently need at least 6-7 hours of sleep now to function normally (this is up from 4-5, which really irks me for some reason), both of my kids are now in high school, and my left hip has started hurting. Wah wah wah.
I have never been a person to be hit by that “mid-life-crisis” thing, but I feel as if I could be now. And sadly, I don’t even know what is going to set it off. I watched my daughter light up the room with all the employees at the Verizon store when we got my phone. She was literally like a fresh, bright, youthful presence that people wanted to talk to and be near. And she just knew, and understood everything that was being shown and said to her. I am “the mom” now. I love love love being the mom of this fabulous little girl/mini-adult, but ouch! that hurt being reminded that I am still, just the mom, and that I need these young people to help me keep up with the times. Double ouch! I see my kids with everything in front of them, a whole wide world to be explored and be a part of, so much bigger than when I was young. There is so much more to do and see now and so many better ways to get there.
“I don’t want to be old!” Cries another 40 year-old, (plus), old person.
Well, there you go. All that from a picture of a light pole. With a bird. Mortality is a sneaky bitch. Did I also mention that I met a 102 year old lady at breakfast last weekend? One hundred and TWO. Walking. Without assistance. And no cane or walker either. She was even able to button up her own coat. She had the chicken salad. Hope springs. Now, I’m not sure that I even want to live to be 102, but it goes to show that the option is there for some. And it lets me know that I am not even half-done yet with life. So that’s what I’m going to take away from this. I will loosely hold onto my kids, while still pushing them forward, for as long as I can, and then let them go too. If I do it right, hopefully they will always want to turn around and pull me along with them once I can’t push anymore.
But these are words for the future. Right now, I have to go to work again to pay for that future. It’s Sunday. It’s beautiful in the Midwest right now. The BF is motorcycle riding for one of those charity/benefit group things, with his friend. My kids are camping with their dad. It’s quiet. Go out and enjoy this day if you can. I will be hoping for a fast quiet night so I can have a nice day off tomorrow. Monday Monday. Summer break is over. Football camp for the boy. Volleyball camp for the girl. And I have a doctor appointment. Just a check-up. Tune-up. Blood results. Preserve the youth for as long as I can. I think I might exercise tomorrow too. Strong body. Strong heart. Hips that don’t hurt! Later.
Stevie Pic #5! And Updates Galore!
Posting to stay in the web site game today. Trying to get hits. It’s a total head thing. Posting because Stevie takes good pictures. Posting to use up all the ideas that are rattling around in my head and driving me crazy. While, in between, doing laundry. That damn laundry.
I have actually had 2 days off. This is my third. Third. (!) Why am I not all posted and getting tons of new followers? Why do I have a giant pile of crappy clothes and never worn shoes on my bedroom floor that are supposed to be purged? Why have I not seen my new little nephew in person?? Why is the laundry NOT done yet???
I have been doing things. Things like, helping my kids with this last week of real school. The boy’s last final is today. He is stressing big time too, trying to finish without any D’s. It’s been a tough and lazy year for this kid. His XBox is riding on this last grade. All he needs is a C. Seriously. And the girl has Algebra and her state Constitution to worry about. Math is killing her, but I told her to focus on the Constitution and forget the rest because at this point 8th grade is all about getting out and moving into high school. She needs to pass the Constitution, everything else, realistically, does not matter. No one EVER asks for your 8th grade transcripts. It’s all about the high school now. Fresh start. I may not be the best mom on the planet today, encouraging my kids to do mediocre, but at this point, on this Friday, with nothing left to lose or gain, passing is going to have to be good enough.
On a more “me” note, I exercised. Yes. I said, and typed, ex-er-cise. I did a workout AND ran a 5K. Yes. Ran. (Jogged. Shuffled. Walked a little. And maybe missed about 1/2 mile of the course…for a total of about a 3.9K) Two and a half miles at least. The course was kind of confusing and didn’t have clear markers at every point, but that’s not too bad. It wasn’t an official timed race, mostly fun. I finished in approx 40 minutes. Not a record breaker, but not last! And it was exercise. Outside, with other people as witness. My daughter helped organize a charity/community run for her school and I took the day off to participate. It was actually quite fun and I feel extremely proud and impressed by my daughter and her school and the whole event in general. There was about 60-70 runners and 100’s of spectators. That may not sound like a lot, but it is pretty damn good for Jr. High. My girl came up with the name and the theme and even designed the facebook page to promote it. Of course it helps that her aunt is a professional event planner and fixed all the details, but hey she’s only 14. Today the little village, tomorrow the big city! Check out the site here, if you like, just to get a feel for the kind of thing it was, and maybe next event you can come too! Here is my number bib as proof:
And holy poo-poo, my legs are killing me! The tops of my thighs seem to have taken the brunt of the exercise fall-out, and they are not allowing me to walk properly, or sit and stand with any kind of grace or fluid motion. I have to push myself up and lower myself down using my arms as brace so I just don’t fall over. So stupid.
The other thing I have been trying, “trying” being the key word in this sentence, is a new exercise craze you may have heard of called: Hip Hop Abs. More like Hip Hop Flabs for me (Sorry, that’s my one joke I keep repeating. It’s not the most original, but it usually gets a laugh.) and Hip Hop Jiggly Butt. (On another rambling side note, I have to say that when I was running, the most distracting thing was my jiggly butt. I could feel it moving. Yuk. So gross. I need to use this burst of exercise rejuvenation and keep doing it. It’s bad when you can feel all the flab actually moving. Yuk again.) My friend at work is like the new spokesperson for Hip Hop Abs or something, and texts me everyday harassing me about this shit. So I finally did it. I have discovered that I may be too old for the hippity hop, or any form of exercise that requires me to dance like a young person in a club and jerk my body all over, and into weird contortions that I probably couldn’t have done even when I was younger. My hips and shoulders don’t necessarily hip and hop in those directions. I just don’t have the rhythm or moves and ability to dance and exercise at the same time, and I never really did. Butt. I am going to try and continue anyway. If you are following along on the body pain tally, this particular tape set hurts my shoulders and arms. My abs are actually fine with this. They have probably just given up and are like, whatever lady, the layer of fat you kindly blanketed across our middle will protect us. Nice try though! Stupid abs. One day I will have a sort-of six pack and a non-30-year-old-ass. That last sentence is all for you Amanda. One day Vegas will see us again and we will ROCK that pool. We will cut through the water like sharks in the ocean. Although I will have to upgrade to a non-40-year-old-ass. Eeek. Time is a ticking.
I will continue now, to update my exercise status, again. I just re-read that, and I didn’t mean right now, but in the days and weeks to come. I even have a plan. I mean, I always have a plan. I just need to carry through. I even have a goal. Fer reals. Wanna see? I might as well just post it now, since this is already long anyway.
It’s a pair of jeans. That’s pretty much it. My entire weight loss/get healthy plan around a pair of Hollister Laguna Skinny 9L’s. I can almost squeeze my ass into them. Literally. They go right on up, and over my legs and thighs, but then stop dead at the ass portion of my body. I can almost tuck it in but then my front poochy area tries to make a stand and it’s just all-around ugly. There is no way I could zip them up and I feel bad for anyone near if I did. The pants would suffer, my flesh would suffer, anyone who has eyes and was looking at me would suffer. The jeans seem to be made of very high quality, strong denim and fasteners, but I don’t know, wearing these right now would require a lot of tensile strength that might be asking too much of a simple pair of pants. But that’s the ultimate goal.
The goal was also to have these on by my daughter’s graduation party in, oh, 22 days. I had a slim-down plan, like I did a few years back. The category heading is still over to the right there. 34 Day Summer Slim Down. Obviously I was going to modify that to account for my new timeline, but guess what? 34 days came and went and now I have 22. I aimed for that date so I could impress my whole family, current, new, and old, with my skinniness, because that’s healthy, right? Like my daughter’s teacher just said to me at the race when we were talking about it, “Oh well as long as you are doing it for the right reasons.” HaHaHa. We laughed. No one loses weight to impress themselves. Anyhoo. I am also trying to grow out my bangs. Which is taking way longer than I want. But I was using her party as goal for that too. I figured if I could keep them longer, and survive the bad stage where they poke at my eyes, without cutting them, at least until then, I could probably make it the rest of the way to the long stage again. So far so good on that goal! I use headbands at work. I feel weird about my open face but half my patients can’t see me clearly anyway so who cares. As I always say, I look much better blurry.
Well I should wrap this up. Hours have been spent here. I swapped a few loads of laundry, but I need to fold all that crap and put it away and try to clean up this house a bit. I defiantly told the BF that I would have all the laundry done by the time he got home. I am so stupid sometimes when I am trying to be all smart. I think I hit all the major updates. No, wait…
Thursday was my daughter’s Spring Band Concert. Done. Today is the 8th grade dance. Exciting! We had Mother’s Day. I had to work. There was the annual Crawfish Boil my sister and her hubby have every year. Fun! Here’s a pic:
I have GOBS of bird pictures and wildlife in the backyard. The bird feeders are back. The fat squirrels are eating everything and making me mad. The hummingbirds are back too. I saw them. I have street money that I am still collecting. My niece graduated high school!! Congrats Jesse!! I have new things involving trucks with crazy stuff on them. And tires. Lots of tires. I don’t even know why. I probably have more random things that I can’t even think about because now I am trying to hurry and finish so I can do a fast clean sweep and get back to the computer. My son just texted. Geometry final is over. He’s one class away now from sophomore year. I need one last picture though to end this mish mash. And there are always more pictures. In my phone and on my desktop. Hmmm. How about superheroes? My kids are a daily reminder that you are never to old to build a blanket fort in your room to keep out the bad guys:
Or too old to goof around in Target. Hurry up mom, and take the picture!! Come on now…
I. Am. IronMan.
You won’t like me when I’m angry.
Saving the world one word at a time. “Mommmmmmm.”
“Come on already.” Later.
Thank you unemployment for this Merry Christmas!!
Yep, still don’t have a job! Humiliating. Sad. Depressing. We finally got some snow today and all my decorations that I will bother to put up are up. It looks really cheerful despite my lack of employment outside my own house! I dread going anywhere that I might know someone because they always ask…Job?? And I have to say…No. And then they say…Ohhhhh, really? Well…don’t worry…blah blah blah…in that sad, feel sorry for me, but wonder what the hell is wrong with me, voice. I can’t take it anymore. Everyday I have to think of a new reason not to hang myself from the rafters. And then I remember, one, I don’t have any “rafters” and two, even if I did, my house isn’t big enough or built well enough for me to be successful at the hanging thing. My ceiling would probably just come down all around me and then I’d be alive but with a giant hole in my ceiling that I would have to clean up! Better just to stay alive and wait.
Anyhow, at least I got to put up decorations this year. I have been neglecting them because of school and what not. I even decorated the inside too. With all my stuff. That includes things like Christmas figurines, stockings, lights, candles, snowglobes…all the things that I never want to drag out and hang or put up because I will have to put it all away again. And speaking of snowglobes, we had a modern day tragedy this season. I stupidly put one of my snowglobes in the large, plastic, lidded (and taped) container I store all my decorations in, including the white tree we had last year (we only get a 4 foot table top one because our space is limited here), and then put the whole thing into the garage last winter. The garage that is outside. Away from the house. I imagine that snowglobe froze right away and then burst and leaked and dumped its water all inside the bin the minute the temperature let it go back to liquid. Then it sat there freezing and unfreezing all winter. As summer began, I see that bin just heating up and broiling and molding for months. We had rain, humidity, extremely high temps. My decorations didn’t stand a chance. When I dragged the container into the house, untaped the lid and pulled off the cover and saw that there was condensation on the underside, I knew it was too late. You would think the smell would have hit me first, but no. And it did stink. If you know what damp, musty, black spotted mold smells like, times that by 5 and unleash it in a 12 by 20 foot room. Yuk. I ALMOST cried. The white tree was totally ruined, brown and black and moldy. All our stockings. The tree skirt. Some frames with baby pictures swirled into colorful destruction. The star. Mason’s mini tree. Stuffed animals. Most of our hanging things. We had to start from scratch. I managed to save a wreath that was made for the kids and me many years ago, that I could not bear to get rid of despite the smell. And I saved the star Mason uses for his tree. Everything else is gone now. But I think it was fine in the end. Fitting really. New beginnings and all that.
I have been exercising too. Might as well right? I can’t get much fatter or I will have no pants to wear. My jeans are at maximum hold. My abdomen protests every day because of its loose, unelastic shape. I can’t even suck it in anymore without giving myself a cramp. But that still didn’t stop me from baking cookies! I really had no choice. Stevie starts these things and then loses interest, which is probably key to her “trouble” with recipes and getting her baked goods to come out tasty and delicious. (If you scroll down a few posts you can read all about her cookie adventures—pretty funny stuff actually) So I help but then end up having to help more and eventually just finish the whole process or have various bowls of flour mixes and melted butter and sugar granules all over the place. And we end up with cookies that look like dangerous weapons or dog droppings. (You really have to scroll down now don’t you?)
I don’t even like to post here anymore and my numbers have gone wayyyy down! I feel so disconnected! And so neglectful of my readers! After I spend hours filling out applications at various hospitals, I do not feel like typing one more thing. This happens every day. I check all my job apps, apply for any new ones, and then re-check later. Believe me, I should get paid for just doing that all day! It sure feels like a job!
But enough about that. I am not one to sit and mope for too long and I have new and exciting features to brag about and never actually follow through on!!
Birds of the Yard! I finally caught my hawk!! You know, the bird. I have been trying to get pics of it all summer. Success! And my cardinal. And the hummingbirds. And the woodpeckers! Blue ones (not sure what they are called) and the red-headed one!! Even got a yellow goldfinch…somewhat blurry, but so beautiful! I am too obsessed with getting pictures of birds. It drives me crazy. I finally downloaded all the pictures from the camera from the last few months (over 1000) and it was like re-living my whole year in picture form! I forgot we did half the stuff we did!
Which also leads me to ANOTHER new feature: Looking Up! Photo posts featuring the city of Chicago that will actually hurt your neck if you look at them all at one time. Apparently we took A LOT of pictures of the buildings looking up at them. And as I was going through them all, I really felt like I was looking up at them all over again. SO of course, I will share with you! My one or two still loyal fans. Or someone. Strangers probably. I manage to get about 3 hits a day now. Most likely random searches that come up when you are looking for something else. But I’ll take it. Zero is too heartbreaking.
So much more… I have football stuff and car stuff and pictures of the sky and trees. If it’s not a picture of a bird, it’s a picture of a tree. Or the sky behind the tree. Or a cloud. I really have too much time. Period. I MUST share! Really, you’ll thank me. My little site will give you nothing but fluff to ease you through the long winter. Who could ask for more?
Alright, I must now go out to the malls today with my kids. They got early X-mas gift cards that are burning holes in their pockets! Here is my tree below. I also have a really good picture of a wreath with lights. I mean, truly, a REALLY great picture. It was a fresh wreath that we adorned with lights because it looked so plain and boring. The picture was just a bonus and a credit to my awesome skills. The suspense! But for now, here’s that tree (ornament/decoration close-ups later!):
My momma done inter-veened me
Too bad all we did was go to breakfast and take MORE distorted pictures. We were laughing like lunatics but at least I was out of the house and away from that cursed computer game. For the record, everything in that picture is extremely exaggerated EXCEPT for the hair. That’s really how big my mom’s hair is. It’s really getting out of hand.
So, THANK YOU MOM!! I will see you Thursday.
Besides I still have like, seven and a half hours before I can get my free spin! Loo-oo-oozer.
Since we were in the world we decided today is a good day to go get new hummingbird and regular-bird feeders. The ones we had were quite destroyed and no hummingbirds were coming anymore. Hopefully this will turn things around on the back patio.
We also got our boarder-dog, Juneau, some supplies. Yes, we have had a dog here for the last two weeks. He’s a good boy, but so furry. We gave him a nice bath and brushing this afternoon. The hair is endless. We’ve been brushing him every day and even though it looks like we brush off a smaller dog every night, by morning there’s more hair shedding out. What’s that? Well of course there’s pictures. Sillies.
We are like a nature center over here. I have lots of backyard animals. Hmmm. I’m sensing a new feature. To go along with all the other new features I never follow through with for more than a day or two. Let’s see if I can break the streak.
Ready. Set. Let’s go.
To the Wild!
Drizzle
That’s the weather sprinkling on my chair sitting and magazine reading.
I just want to update quickly for the P90X crowd. Skipped Thursday for the garage sale….the drinking portion is below…and went to the early morning fitness training session with my friend Beth, today, Friday. It was at 7 am. Maybe not early for some, but too early for me to have to get up and dress and drive and exercise. I was regretting the margarita’s and pizza (ugh…I did THAT too—horror!) because I felt pretty crap ass this morning. But I did it and it was awesome. VERY glad I went…thanks Beth!!
Her trainer ran us through all these drills and arms and cardio and I really can’t even remember the order or what exactly. It was fast and sweaty and quite a good workout. What’s weird is that the whole time he was showing us what to do and timing us and we were doing it, Tony Horton’s voice was running in my head. “You can do anything for 30 seconds”, “Do your best and forget the rest”, “I’m done talking. 5 4, 3 2, let’s go”. I really believe doing those workouts, even for 24 days now, has vastly improved my ability to work out in other areas! Just like the program promises. I know I’m like a running commercial for the stuff, but I love it.
At any rate, I’m worked out for the day and I had nothing but time left to finish some school stuff and update other things so that’s good. I made Beth run an extra 10 minutes with me—squeezed off a fast (for me) mile to prepare for the weekend—so I don’t feel guilty about missing my P90 workout. Tomorrow is another day. Shoulders and arms and abs. I like having arm muscles, and abs I guess, although they are still not visible. Then I can go to the gym and run and that will make up for movies and popcorn which is the next thing I’m going to do tonight. And NOT the healthy air-popped corn. I’m having the nasty, buttery, stomach cramping kind. Sounds yummy doesn’t it? I’m thinking I’ll skip the alcohol though. I’m a cheap date. Ahem.
I’m going to attempt more sitting now. My Achilles tendon is hurting from the incline and I need to rest. I’ll put a little ice cream on the wound, from the inside, and all will be well. I filled all the birdfeeders and we have a BlueBird so I want to get a picture. Hummingbird pics are coming. I caught a really good one and the camera died so it’s trapped on there for the moment, but there’s another kind of bird: One on top. One below. Hahaha. X it.
just shy of pretty 