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.

Survival

I survived my last day at Hyphenated Corp., despite the fact that one of the attorney editors invited Blondezilla to my goodbye lunch.

Plaid Jammies survived his cataract surgery, and although he is in a lot of pain right now, hopefully all will be well soon.

I will survive job-hunting, as I am going back to work temporarily for Mom while I look.

My neurologist says that I am surviving MS quite nicely, but he wants me to have an MRI before my insurance runs out.

So to sum up:

A really, truly, blissfully happy post

My dear and darling friend Megan just sold two mezzotints and nine pottery pieces to the Kirkland Museum. If you are interested in owning a piece of amazing artwork, check out her Etsy store.

If you just want to drool, here's a pic of my mug stash:




Here is the toad house she made for my birthday two years ago:



I am so thrilled that she is getting some major recognition for her work.

Thank you, Bakerella!

Last weekend, Mom and I broke our brains trying to balance an accounting that is due on January 26th. On Wednesday, Mom called me to tell me she had balanced it, and all that remained was to put it in the proper format and mail it to Portage County. I told her I would go in Thursday night and put all the data from the Excel file on the admin computer into the Word document that matches the court forms (said Word document also on said admin computer). I worked a full day at Hyphenated Corp. and then fought traffic to get to Mom's office. I might also mention that I had spent the entire day fighting an allergy attack of the repeated-sneezing-and-very-itchy-eyes type, and wanted more than anything else to go home and take some Benadrool to MAKE. IT. STOP.

When I got to the office, Mom was still there, but indicated she'd had a truly horrible day. Not only was she having trouble with a bank on behalf of one of her clients, her computer had died earlier in the week, and on Thursday Dad came in to install her new one.

Unfortunately, Mom didn't remember to tell him I would need the admin computer, and he took it home! So I had wasted my time and gas money, and we were no closer to gettting the accounting to the court than we had been when we couldn't balance it. I told Mom I would have Dad e-mail me the files I needed, then fax the completed forms to the office, so she could make copies and send them to the court.

When I hadn't heard from Dad by eight o'clock, I called and Mom said he was taking a nap. At that point, I was still sneezing like crazy, and I told her that I was going to take a bath, some Benadryl, and go to bed, and Dad could e-mail the files tomorrow and she could mail them on Saturday. Then I hung up on her.

After several attempts to get the right files to me, Dad sent the ones I needed, I plugged in the information, printed one copy, faxed one to the office, and called Mom and told her that I'd go in to the office after water-walking Saturday morning to get the copies made and everything in the mail (she had a client meeting at eleven-thirty).

When I woke up Saturday morning, it was early. I was worried enough about the accounting to get dressed, have coffee, let the dogs in and out and go into the office before water-walking rather than after. When I got there, I discovered that Dad had used a new password on Mom's new computer, so I had to call and wake up the scary bear to get it. After that, everything went smoothly, and I headed off to water-walking with a light heart and a filled briefcase. After class, Mom signed everything and headed into the office, and I made it to the post office in plenty of time.

So what does all that have to do with my post title? Well, between working Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday morning, plus the fact that Dad won't have the computer back until Monday, meant that I didn't have to go into Mom's office today.

Wednesday is my last day at Hyphenated Corp. Since I have promised repeatedly that I will bring in crack cookies (Jan Hagels) one last time for my co-workers, I made those today. As with any baking project, the first step is to vacuum the kitchen floor and wipe down all surfaces so there are no inadvertent inclusions of dog hair. I made three batches of Jan Hagels (40 cookies each).

My father adores peanut butter. He puts it on anything that will hold it, including garlic bread and hamburgers. He also likes peanut butter cookies, but he constantly comments than there is never enough taste of peanut butter in the cookies, whether homemade or commercial. While browsing Bakerella, I found a recipe for flourless peanut butter cookies. I made a batch of those, set two aside for Dad, and added the rest into the cookie tins for my co-workers. I didn't dip the cookies in chocolate the way Bakerella did, because I want Dad to evaluate just the cookies. I'm thinking that these would make a very sophisticated version of peanut butter kisses if I use Cemoi Truffes instead of Hershey's Kisses. JammiesFest attendees, prepare to be guinea pigs!

I also trashed my clean kitchen and burned myself, but it was all worth it.

Yay for pasta and the internet

Pasta, because that's all I can eat.

The internet, because that's the only way I can communicate.

The dentist was over two hours of hell this morning, and pain requiring T3 ever since. So instead of boring my few remaining readers and/or grossing people out, I will share adorable doggie pictures!

Littlefoot:




My brother's dog, Ralphie:

Any day that starts with the sledgehammer really isn't good.

Yesterday, I took the day off from Hyphenated Co. Last night, Mom and I went to calling hours for a friend's mother, who just died from pancreatic cancer. Mom has known the family for a very long time--one of the daughters was her student in college, the father was an attorney with an office in the same building as Mom's first office, another daughter is also an area attorney. I never met the dad, because he died quite some time ago, but the attorney/daughter was someone I got to know fairly well in the years I worked for Mom, and came to like and respect very much. I know that Mom will be available for her friend as the months pass, and I will try to do the same.

After the funeral home, Mom and I had dinner at the Olive Garden. We split an appetizer of their new mozzarella fondue, which was wonderful and very rich, and some garden salad, which was a good contrast to the fondue if somewhat lacking in nutrients (really, would it kill them to use something other than iceberg lettuce?). When we parted, I headed to BJ's, where I planned to get gas and then pick up a few groceries.

It snowed all last week, and last night was no exception--it was snowing, the wind was vicious, the cold was intense, and when I got to the gas station, I couldn't get the door over my gas tank open. I had the attendant cancel the pump transaction for me, and came home.

My garage is unheated, so if there was a freezing problem with the gas tank door, it didn't change. I smacked the door several times with a sledgehammer, and when that didn't work, took it to the local auto shop. The owner had me pull up on the latch release inside the car while he pushed on the door, and that got it open. Feeling obligated, I filled up there at $2.90/gallon, then got went to water-walking. Mom and I had a good class, after which I came home, ate lunch, took a bath and had a long nap.

Must clean, shovel and do laundry tomorrow. Ugh.

*kicks 2009 in the balls*

HARD

*thinks*

*does it again*

The year in which I lost my heartdog and my job is over, and I suspect it's just seasonal letdown, but I am feeling apathetic and borderline depressed this weekend, despite a nice Christmas and NYE.

Things have to get better soon.

Beware teh Jammies, Enabler of DOOOOOM

Yes, in addition to luring Otterboyy up the Lush garden path, I've already gotten Mallie hooked on Skindecent, and the holiday season was my excuse for hooking her husband on both Lush and BPAL. If you want to know why I call him the Scarecrow, click the label for "Cast of Characters" and read the first entry. If you'd like to know why I call myself a troll, the short version is that I'm not all that fond of humanity, I like shiny things, and I'd rather live happily here under my bridge than just about anywhere else.

So the package of junk from under the bridge arrived at Casa Clemson on Tuesday, and I got a happy phone call from Mallie and Jay. The kitties would have said thank you if they weren't all nipped out, but the hoomans were still verbal. In addition to assorted Lush goodies (really, what better way to hook a masseur than with not one but two Lush massage bars?), I got Jay a bottle of Troll, which is a gorgeous clove-and-swamp BPAL. Sherri said she can't wait to smell it on him, which is the sentence every enabler wants to hear. ;)

In all fairness, I should warn my victims that it starts off simple, with a Lush product or two. Then, when I've got you hooked on smelling good, I'll lure you in to smooth, soft skin-land with sugar scrubs and it will always end in delicious niche perfumes.

Beware!

Enabling we will go, enabling we will go,

Hi-ho the derry-o, enabling we will go!

This morning, I got an e-mail from a friend, asking for help finding good quality bath products. Said friend, who shall remain nameless, has been using drugstore bubble bath (oh, teh howwow!) and wants something better. I had a very fun hour looking up scent notes and compiling an e-mail full of Lush, Skindecent and Fantasy Bath suggestions.

LOL! Guess who just called from the Lush store in Anaheim? My crazy friend, who has picked out some bubble bars and promised me a report.

Last week I also got to enable a friend to the Morganville vampire series by Rachel Caine. She was my giftee in a BPAL swap, and since she loves to laugh at Twihlight, I got her a necklace from Stardust on Etsy, a Jinx t-shirt, and a vampire book I hope won't make her fall over laughing. I loved reading about her reactions to all of her gifts.

Ahhh, enabling. It's evil, but I love it so...

In which we learn that some people will stop at nothing.

Once upon a time, there was an international toe porn superstar named Spunky Labia. Spunky ruled the toe porn world with an iron foot, and thought she was secure.

Then, along came an upstart to challenge her, the beautiful, young, breathtakingly-pedicured Toesy Kerrigan.

Spunky was jealous, but in denial about her slow slide from superstardom to opening car shows.

On Monday night, as Toesy went to take a picture of her glamorous new coat of glittery green China Glaze Emerald Sparkle, a footstool leapt out from the shadows and bashed her with a thick piece of wood!

Toesy fell to the ground, crying, "Why me? Whyyyyyyyyyyy meeeeeeeeeeeeeee?"

The footstool is being held for questioning, and an unnamed source says that it is related to Spunky's ex-footstool.

Toesy's people released the following photograph, not for the faint of heart:



Clearly, international toe porn is a cutthroat business!

Dear Auntie Mallie and Uncle Jay

Thank you for the donuts. Mom didn't catch me eating them until the first one was half gone and the second one was one-quarter gone, and then she threw them out! Aren't donuts for eating?

Anyway, thanks!

Love,

Little Miss