Something new

I finally decided to get off my butt and start a second blog for all of my "girly" stuff. I'm calling it Bubbles and Baubles, and I will be using it for all the things that make me squee in an embarrassing fashion.

348!

My natatorium membership renews on March 7--I can't believe I've been water-walking for almost a year. This is the first exercise program I have ever stuck with, and while individual classes haven't been easy, the commitment has been.

When I started, my jogging speed was one step per second. On Wednesday night, I did 340 steps in four minutes or 240 seconds. Today, I did 348 steps during the four-minute jog. I celebrated with ten minutes in the hot tub and a long nap this afternoon. I haven't lost any weight in the last year, but my clothes feel better and clearly, my endurance and speed have improved.

My only regret is that I didn't do this right after my surgery!

He did it!

At 1:30 today, my wonderful nephew, who is not yet 10, became a probationary black belt!

Jammies has a knitting lesson

Ahhh, irony, I am your bitch. At lunchtime, Mom and I talked about Boy Bull Moose from the water fitness classes, who is very sweet. I said that as much as I thought he was a nice person, being near him in either of the water classes was like being at Ground Zero in the Bellagio water fountain show. Then I had to explain what the Bellagio is, what they do with their fountain, and that led to me telling her about the guys at Eepy Bird and the Diet Coke & Mentos Bellagio re-enactment.

Mom has offered several times to teach me to knit, but it wasn't until very recently that I had a reason to want to learn. Today, after we'd both eaten lunch, she brought out two knitting needles and yarn that she had cast on for me, and showed me how to knit. Amid many smartass remarks (all from me, of course) I managed to do about 20 stitches on my own. That took about 15 minutes, and I set the knitting on my lap and took a big swig of my Diet Coke. Unfortunately, it was semi-warm and what I got was almost all bubbles, which went up my nose, down my airway, and back out in a spectacular spit-take and one hell of a coughing jag. I also managed to lose control of my bladder, and since I drink water constantly, I wound up coming home early.

Note to self: sip, don't gulp.

Note to everyone else: it's okay to laugh yourself silly over this. I certainly did. However, hurtful comments will be deleted. I'm a delicate flower, you know.

Updates

The friend who had the stroke is home now, with meds and advice to make sure it doesn't happen again, and what looks to be a pretty complete recovery. Zayrina was right, as she usually is. :) Thank you all for the good thoughts and prayers.

It's Valentine's Day and I'm still single. Usually, I don't regret that too much, but I still get twinges from time to time.

Working for Mom is good, if temporary. No nibbles anywhere since my one phone interview a month ago. *sigh*

The dogs are fine. Little Miss needs her big-girl rabies shot and a dental cleaning, and I need to have another old filling removed and replaced. Ugh. This time, I am asking for Valium, and Dad is going to take me to and from the dentist.

Speaking of Plaid Jammies, Friday was his second cataract surgery, and he did better afterwards this time than he did after the first one. Of course, he also said that the minute they were done he took a Vicodin. Last time, he didn't take anything until he started hurting, and then he spent the weekend in agony. This time, he got ahead of the pain, and wasn't taking anything by the time I saw him last night.

My nephews are still adorable--I got to see them, my brother and my sister-in-law last night. We had a lovely dinner, and I left just in time. There was a poop joke in G-Force as I was leaving. I could have stuck around for the movie, but I had to stop at the store on the way home and get laundry detergent for my oh-so-exciting Valentine's.

And on that note, I'm off to throw some socks in the dryer.

If you pray...

please pray for my kind, talented, generous, crafty, smart, good-smelling, sweet, 36 year-old friend Kate, who had a stroke on Friday. If you don't pray, please send good thoughts. She's doing very well, but there are still lingering effects on her speech, memory and thought-processing, and she still has two blood clots in the left side of her brain.

Thanks.

RIP, chicken inna bikini

Today was a lovely quiet Sunday. I didn't have to go work for Mom (since I'm working for her Monday through Friday now), so I got to potter around the house and do laundry and clean the bathroom and unload and reload the dishwasher.

The sun came out and the yards front and back looked beautiful in their very big snowcoats.

Also beautiful is my nail polish--China Glaze BFF, which is a rich rose holographic color, and was even in one coat and bottle color in two. Then I added a coat of NYX Girls #227, which is clear with opalescent hearts. I think after my shower, my toes will get a very quick two coats of a matte polish, since mattes dry so quickly and it's just too cold to leave my tootsies bare for more than ten minutes!

The doggies spent their quiet day in their usual manner. Littlefoot alternated between sleeping on my bed, emptying the water bowl, and asking for pets. Little Miss went on a search-and-destroy mission when she wasn't hitting me with the Squeaky Toy of Uncanny Noises or asking for pets. When she went outside, she tried to clean the yard by eating all of the snow she could, and inside she ate any snow which came in on her paws or Littlefoot's.

For the first time ever, Little Miss deigned to notice the existence of the chicken inna bikini, which Mallie bought for Bigfoot and Littlefoot two years ago. I wish I had been faster with the camera, because one moment Little Miss was standing in front of the toy box with the chicken hanging from her mouth (photo op!) and the next, she was lying down with a headless chicken between her paws (not a photo op).

So RIP, chicken inna bikini, and if you feel the need to haunt anyone, remember it was Mallie who gave you to the dogs.

"Sometimes you walk out the door and step in six inches of partly cloudy"

That's a quote from veteran Cleveland weatherman, Dick Goddard.

There are probably some very red-faced meteorologists around here, because instead of 2-4 inches last night, we got upwards of a foot! The gal who does my plowing couldn't get to my house in time for me to make the 10 a.m. water-walking class, so I backed the car up and down the driveway a few times (okay, until I got it stuck), then turned it off and shoveled away the hump at the end from the snowplows. My next-door neighbor helped, bless his heart. Fortunately, he didn't come over until after I had the snow shoveled away from the tires, so he didn't realize I didn't stop on purpose.

I made it to the pool a bit after 10, and was in the locker room getting changed when my mom came in. She nodded and said hi and kept walking, then did a double-take and exclamied, "You made it!" I'm still giggling over that. Water-walking was cancelled, but Mom and I did about half an hour of pool exercises on our own.

Afterwards, we went shopping. At TJ Maxx, I got my older niece an adorable dress for her birthday, bought my mom a birdhouse she fell in love with for her birthday, and got started on my nieces' Christmas presents. Then Mom headed home and I went to the craft store, but there was a handwritten sign in the window saying "closed due to now." Since it was 12:30 and in the 30s by then, the sign looked incongruous. I'm sure they closed because only one person made it in, but it was still pretty funny-looking.

I'm not a newt any more...

I got better! Got my Lexapro, got love and reassurance from family and friends, balanced an accounting with Mom today and had a giggle this morning when my new Skindecent conditioner was still partially frozen and I couldn't use it. Clearly, bath products travelling from Saskatoon to NE Ohio via Winnipeg, North Dakota and Minnesota don't have much chance to warm up!

Newsflash: Skindecent saves woman's sanity

Today sucked. I'm out of my antidepressant and for some reason, my Hyphenated Corp. health insurance is suddenly invalid, today was my first day back at Mom's office and I had to do payroll taxes, and the icing on the cake is when I got home and discovered that one of the dogs chewed up at least one of my rubber duckies.

If it hadn't been for my pre-layoff Skindecent order on my front porch, I probably would have totally lost it. As it is, I'm opening it as I listen to the stupid hold music for A(ssholes)E(at your)T(ime and give you)N(othing in return but want)A(ll your money) insurance's so-called "Customer Care" line.

I'm on the verge of tears, as I have been since I left the pharmacy without my Lexapro, but right now, they are more tears of gratitude for the kindness of Marliss, the genius behind Skindecent. Not only did she send samples of the Lush dupes for Sultana and The Olive Branch, she sent me an entire Girlfriend's Stress Relief Kit. Marliss has always provided amazing products and customer service, but this kind of thoughtful detail is truly amazing.

And now, since the insurance person wants the pharmacist to call and the pharmacist is being snarky about not wanting to call, I'm going to go huff bath products and hope that tomorrow is a VAST improvement over today.