clickmom

would have been

I put the garbage out on the curb today even though it was veteran's day.  This is dumb reasoning, but I've seen the garbage men and none of them look old enough to have served in the military.  They didn't come.  Neither did the mailman and I was totally looking forward to today's installment of the yearly pre-holiday catalog onslaught catalogs I have no need for or interest in.  I'm making lemonade by telling myself that tomorrow I'll get twice as many absurd catalogs.

Tomorrow I will also have 2 kids home with a stomach bug.  Evan has been home since wednesday and Josh was also home today.  Stir crazy?  YES.

I was hoping to spend the day running around keeping busy, taking photos, meeting my babes and trying not to think about it being my dad's birthday tomorrow.  He's been gone over a year and a half now.  I still can't believe it.  We always thought he'd live to 100.  Dad loved to tell a story about some 97 year uncle in the hospital who pretty much harassed the pretty nurses.  We thought that would be dad one day.  He would have been 91.

Fuck you Cancer.

 

What? I'm a dog person.

The annual pre-holiday catalog onslaught has begun.  While I appreciate the catalogs full of orthopedic shoes and festive plaid jumpers, the catalog that has me totally captivated and practically mesmerized is the knife catalog that arrived today.  Folks, I have never before been tempted to buy THROWING knives, but now that I see how reasonably priced they are and how they conveniently come in sets of three (one for each kid  / target assistant)  I just can't figure out why I've waited so long!  Also, there is the CAT SKINNER, which does not say what it is for, and ever since somebody else (I have an alibi!)  ran over the neighbor's cat that had decided my kid's back yard play area was a great big litter box, I don't really need a CAT SKINNER, but you never know when that kind of thing comes in handy.  There is also a nice spread on machetes and I can close my eyes right now and fantasize grabbing my very own machete and getting a head start on the landscaping that is going to have to happen should we end up buying the house I so very much like in the new town.  After all, there are 8 long nights of chanukah and how much photo equipment can one girl ask for?  Right?

One morning last week Matt and Evan were late getting ready for school.  They said they didn't care if they were late for school and I told them to hurry up anyway because I had to drop them off, come home, wake up Josh, make his breakfast and lunch,  get him ready for school and drop him off before I could (read sarcasm into the rest of this sentence)  relax on the couch and eat my bon bons.  The boys had never heard of the whole life of luxury bon bon thing, and I told them what it is and also that is most definitely not what I did with my day anyway and they asked "Why not? It sounds nice." and ever since then I've really wanted to sit in the couch and eat bon bons.  This morning Evan got up, showered dressed, came downstairs and declared himself to nauseated to go to school.  I sent him back to bed, ran to the posh club for my weight loss contest workout and came home by 9 to find Evan still fast asleep in bed.  Thinking that this might be the equivalent of my desired bon bon day (except without actual bon bons and with a kid possibly hurling beside me) I sat down on the couch.  "Relaxing" didn't last too long, because I had to run to the bathroom a few times.  (Thanks, Ev!)  Until I finally I kind of pulled a blanket on myself and fell asleep on the couch, and then I showered, did dishes, went to the bathroom some more, fought off more chills with fleece lined boots, a warm sweater and a jacket and massive doses of vitamins and green tea and picked Josh up from school.  I'm totally not counting this as a bon bon day.   I am only awake right now at 8:30 thanks to the caffeinated goodness of green tea.  I can't even believe how tired I am.  (Tempted to make a pooped joke here, but won't) 

impressionable or not impressionable

Tonight I really wanted a GF beer with my dinner.  I might have been feeling left out and deprived because the boys had (free range organic grass fed) burgers (Monday night is burger night in my house)  and I had a low fat substitute, when what I really wanted was a big 'ol steaming hot burger with gobs of melted cheese dripping down the side.  It's a fear of gall bladder attack thing that keeps me in low fat line these days.   I took the GF beer out of the fridge, sat it on the counter, and then promptly forgot all about it.  I drowned my burgerless sorrows in baked tater tots instead.  By the time I realized the GF beer was still sitting on the counter I was done with my dinner so I put the neglected beverage back in the fridge.  

I have a hang up about drinking alone anyway.  I'm pretty sure someone scared me about drinking alone when I was a young impressionable child.  I know my mom scared me about eating in the middle of the night.  To this day I can not eat in the middle of the night.  Not that the fear of eating in the middle of the night has kept me slim or anything .....     I'm also old enough to have been shown the films in school that might lead a child to believe that she'd go crazy from certain recreational drugs.  Maybe I wasn't as impressionable as I think I was.  

Someone in my photo class turned towards me and belched into my air space today.  It wouldn't have been as bad as it was if it wasn't the kind of belch sound that proceeds vomiting and I 1/2 lurched out of my seat to avoid getting sprayed with vomit that never happened.  I did get a whiff of the belch though, and I feel that qualifies me for a new seat.  I'm pretty sure that once I have smelled the belch of my photo neighbor that my dues are paid forever and I should get to sit next to the person of my choice, preferably someone who is less gaseous and less high strung, because this particular belch laden lady is so stressed out I am finding it difficult to be in the same room as her.

Which reminds me that last week some kind of gastrointestinal distress gas plague moved through my family and nothing pains me more than spending time in my vehicle with 3 man-children who think nothing of letting off some lower intestinal steam and then giggling as they lower their window while the rest of writhe in schnozzola pain.  I was able to fart on command on my own worst day of the gas plague and nothing was funnier.   To me that is, funny to me.

hunt and pecking

I went to see a few houses in new town today.  I'm getting really good at deciphering the over exaggerated wide angle lens shots and am not surprised any more at how tiny the real rooms end up being in reality.  Also, today I finally got the exact right interpretation for "park like setting."  If you are looking at a house that says "park like setting" int he realtor's description you can pretty much count on that meaning "grandpa died in 1982 and we just never got around to the yard work."   

But the "park (forest) like setting" of bear bait's future pee grounds did not deter me from falling in love with one house I saw today.  (It's the one with the artist's studio!) Now I have to get the husband on board.  

murderous

Young ladies out there, I have bad news for you.  The whole monthly cycle thing can get worse.   I just felt shiteous today.  Spell check doesn't agree with shiteous or craptastic but it does condone the use of gloomy and dispirited also tearful, blue and murderous, which was the the very word I think I used during my very first unheeded warning announcement to the family early this morning, followed by at least two other announcements of my current state of mood disorder that I can vividly recall, which may have have taken murderous down to a simple warning to tread lightly around me.  

Ask me how the husband got all disgusted and almost walked out of the establishment we were dining in for lunch when I got weepy.  I wanted him to walk out so bad because I had the car keys in my pocket and I would have left him stranded in the mall in a heart beat.

I wonder if mothers of all girl families get to luxuriate in the horribleness of the monthly cycle, unlike me, the mother of three testosterone fueled manly men.  

My first choice activity for today would have been to check into a hotel, draw the light blocking curtains and watch television all day only to be interrupted by room service or long hot baths.  I had cramps too,  which I also announced to all within earshot this morning.  Sympathy from the all man family?  None.

Part of me is fantasizing about living all by myself one day. 

I saw a house in new town and it had everything the entire family wants.  Not in obvious need of renovations, (husband's desire) , walking distance to town (for Evan and Josh) , nice sized lot (bear bait) and HAD AN UNATTACHED ARTIST'S STUDIO.  (ME ME ME ME!!!)  I have a room in my current house that I use as a studio, and I really don't want to give one up.  Now I have a couple of pieces of big equipment and I want to be able to work where I live and not have to drive over an hour to go to utopia, where I would have to put the stuff if I don't have space for it in new town's new house.  If I wake up feeling like the rest of humanity is tolerable tomorrow I might drive to new town for a peek at the house.  It seems too good to be true and I'd rather know sooner rather than later so I can keep looking around if indeed it is.

 

another week, another update

Real quick ....  Here is the update for Steve's Hot 100

1. I exercised as planned.  I'm getting so strong and I love it.  When I see myself in the mirror now I can see the way I stand is different and when I get up and move I can feel my muscles moving me in a much different way.  

2. I binged and nibbled my through the week on halloween candy.  The sugar has made me weak as can be.  I can feel no energy within. I know it's the sugar.  SInce I take it easier ont he weekends, I plan on going 100% sugar free, save for 2 normal size pieces (or portions) of fruit per day, (again) and get my strength and resolve back.  I saw a bracelet in a catalog with a pendant on it that said COMMITMENT.  I've been thinking there must be a word that I can target as my own personal reminder word and that seems like a good one.  I need to commit to my health,  physically, mentally and spiritually.   Remember how last week was so curious because I didn't gain weight?  I'm up a couple of pounds.  

3. No cleaning at all.  I care less about that goal every day.  Mostly because I have been producing so much art lately.  And that is what I find rewarding and fulfilling.   I do everything in the last minute, and I guess I'll be in a panic yelling and screaming and doing all this cleaning last minute too.  It's just how I roll.

stuff that happened to me today

1. I couldn't figure out where I was, what I was supposed to do, or who was talking to me.  Then I realized that the guy talking to me was actually the news man on my clock radio alarm clock.

2. Forgot to have breakfast

3. Heat wasn't on in the sauna.  Sat there anyway because I needed to think.

4. Forgot to bring clean socks with me to the posh club.  Had to re-dress in sweaty gym socks.

5. Went to the post office to mail package.  Couldn't find slip of paper with address on it.

6.  Couldn't find any of the one brand of jean that fits me best at wholesale store.

7.  No mole sauce at shop rite.

8. Timidly entered port-o-potty with the back up plan of using the great outdoors depending on the gross factor of the port-o-potty.  It had been cleaned 15 minutes prior!  It was spotless and virtually odorless.  (Well, as odorless as a port-o-potty can be) 

8. The devil was covered with the dusty dried powdeery crust of the $40 worth of protein powder she stole off of the kitchen counter and managed to chew through the plastic jar of.  Now she has serious gas.

9. A different shop-rite didn't carry mole sauce.

10. I make up my own mole sauce, with extra chocolate.

11. Josh tripped while walking with one of my favorite bowls, filled with mole sauce covered steak. 

12. Two toilets ended up clogged.  It had nothing to do with my mole sauce! 

13.  The shrew witch pretty much admitted to my face that she scored me right out of that juried photo contest.  

As requested

shrew doomed

I'm pissed tonight.

I didn't get a photo into either juried show.

Then I found out that two women from my "class" each got a piece into the more impressive show and that one of them got two pieces into the less impressive show.  It was a slap in the face.

Both of their more impressive show pieces are very photoshopped.  I am more of a purist.  One is a dark and moody faux landscape and the other is a bizarre self portrait.  Neither woman is a trained photographer.  One doesn't even know how to operate her camera.  I consider them amateurs. So that got me down.  But at least I felt like the judging was fair.

Then tonight I saw some documentation that the woman who has her shrew cold as ice witch fingers in every single photographic project in the entire garden state replaced one of the 3 jurors in the less impressive show.  I am quite certain that this angry shrew woman HATES me.   I don't know why she does though.  Her presence on the jury surely doomed me. I'd like to see the scoring now.  And then I'd like to have a big old very loud and very public hissy fit if I see that the shrew scored me disproportionately low to the other jurors.  

I'm going to be so happy to kiss the shrew part of stepford goodbye.   (And maybe kick it in the balls on my way out of the door)  I can't wait to start fresh in new town.

NO SEGWAY: Some good news is that after having two entire meals of pure crappy halloween candy yesterday I managed to scrabble back onto the wagon today.  I own up to one atomic fire ball and a couple of pieces of bubble gum.  Other than that it was a pretty good eating day.  Finally!  I may have gotten some help in the form of exhaustion.  I was up for no reason at all in the middle of the night last night and I suspect that my typical afternoon binge was tempered by the extreme level of mid afternoon exhaustion I was fighting.   But, if sleepy keeps me in line, then I'll go with sleepy over frantic binge eating.  Tomorrow I plan on some serious stair mill time and free weights.  

visual disturbance

I've really wanted a leather jacket for years now and I never get myself a leather jacket because I always think I will get it when I lose the weight.  This year I decided to get one because I'm half way there.  If I can't wear it until it wears out because it gets too big on me, then I'll get myself another one.  I'll deserve it.

I started searching the discount places that I sometimes troll through for my future baby.  I'm big on discount places because of that eternal goal of not being this size the same time next year.  Also because I'm cheap.  I hate paying full price.  Now, I know I am between women's sizes and ladies sizes, and I kept trying on XL ladies leather jackets in hopes that they'd fit.  It would look good after I slipped on the sleeves, but inevitably, the front wouldn't close.  The other day I was in the mall anyway and I thought I'd maybe stroll through one of the department stores and see if there was anything there for me.  

Lo and behold I found a jacket that I really liked.  The best feature?  It was Calvin Klein who cuts clothes for women who have bosoms.  THANK YOU CALVIN!   MWAH!  One problem was that there was only one jacket left and it was a 3x (but it was 50% off!).  I approached the sales lady and she checked on the computer and said she could mail one from another store.  Then she asked me if I wanted the 2x or the 1x and I was terrified that the 1x wouldn't fit.  I don't know why.   It was irrational.  I asked for the 1x anyway and thought to myself that if it didn't fit this season it would fit next season.  Then the package came and I ripped it open, slid the sleeves on, zipped it right up and thought, WOW, I HAVE ROOM FOR A SWEATER IN HERE.

Later that afternoon I wore my new leather jacket to the grocery store, where I bumped into a friend in her new leather jacket and I spewed the whole size story to her and she said that she had the same too much boobage upfront can't fit into regular sizes problem.  This stopped me dead in my tracks.  I stared at her with my mouth hanging open.  I thought my friend was a regular size, not anywhere near my size.  I have no idea what I look like.