Just Expressive

Based on this post via Jonniker, I decided to share some of our family’s quirks with you, for lo there are many.

Monday nights are pizza nights. I’m sure some of you are saying but that’s not a quirk, that’s a tradition! Or that’s just a fun thing y’all do! But NO. If I change it up? If we have some other meal Monday night? If we miss HIMYM (How I Met Your Mother) and Pizza? I hear “But MONDAY IS PIZZA NIGHT” and am met with looks of confusion and the world hits a full stop. Monday IS Pizza night.

To sleep I have to have a fan. HAVE TO HAVE A FAN. So I have the Ambiance app on my iPhone for when I am not at home and will sleep with my earphones in my ears in order to have a fan (and not wake my roomies) if it’s just my family? FULL ON SPEAKERS. When my sister and I traveled to Sea World with the kids? SHE BROUGHT A FAN TO THE HOTEL. Yes. We looked like hillbillies carrying a box fan into the freaking OMNI HOTEL and yet? I was so excited for the possibility of a good night’s sleep. It didn’t happen because everyone in the room kept me awake, am lightest sleeper ever.

I also require a “cuddle pillow” and yes we call it that twee of a name. In our queen-sized bed it’s me, my husband and each of us having our own pillows. We are both mainly side sleepers and it’s so much more comfortable to have the pillow to wrap around. We also each have our own sheet and if I had my way? We’d have our own blanket. If I truly had my way we’d have a king-sized sleep number bed, but I digress. My husband is the biggest cover hog that has ever lived. He is also the biggest bed hog that has ever lived and another function of the cuddle pillow is to keep his ass on HIS FUCKING SIDE. My husband’s ritual when he gets into bed makes me nuts. He can’t stand wrinkles in any part of the sheets that touch him so it takes him a good 15 mins (or it just seems that long) while he sorts it all out and if I’m in bed? That time is spent hearing all the sheet cracking and thumping and feeling it pull all over my body or on the really bad days? GETTING ELBOWED IN THE FACE as he works it out over there.

At home? We both sleep naked, be ye warned robbers of America, but at a hotel? PAJAMAS ARE A MUST (aka boxers for the husband) I wish all hotels were the type with duvet comforter situations or just multiple sheets with a blanket sandwiched in between. I get SKEEVED OUT when I see those old fashioned bed covers, you KNOW that shit never gets washed. UGH SO MANY FLUIDS. *shudder* I also rarely am barefoot in hotels unless I am trying to pretend I am not that OCD. When I am at a hotel with family and can let my freak flag fly? Flip flops or slipper socks at all times.

I absolutely can not fall asleep on my back. If I start to? Every part of my body becomes uncomfortable and I have to move. HAVE TO MOVE.

Laundry is sorted into towels, sheets, colors, bleeders (new colors like new jeans and reds that will bleed too bad to be in general population) and lights (whites, tans and pastels). I don’t believe in bleaching laundry unless absolutely necessary. I have no issues with sorting, loading into the washer, loading into the dryer, hanging to dry and heaping the stuff from the dryer into the nearest chair but I HATE FOLDING AND PUTTING AWAY. HATE.

I’m totally fine with a quiet house during the day but if I hear something (a song, the radio in the car, the tv) at some point? Then I have to have noise the rest of the day. Once the silence is broken it must remain so.

I’m sure there are more…but that’s all I can think of for now.

As a reminder we have a pool on flicker for y’all to join http://www.flickr.com/groups/scarfswap2012/ where you can easily upload the pics of your new scarves. If you don’t have a flickr account you can always shoot me an e-mail containing your pic or tweet your pic letting me know you’d like me to post it for you there and I’d be happy to do that for you!

Andrea posted about her swap here
Jennifer blogged about her swap here
if anyone else has blogged about it and would like me to share their post, just let me know.

One of my swap buddies received her scarf but I haven’t yet heard from the other and I am trying to pretend that everything is fine and that the post office hasn’t lost any of my packages before.

My stores all have their flip flops out and it has me thinking of our next swap!

To this point there is no feedback on the tutorial I did…so I’m thinking that means y’all didn’t get anything out of it, which is cool. I just am not sure if I should do more? Maybe y’all would get something out of a different one? Or if I should not do them at all? I actually did one yesterday but my phone ran out of storage space toward the end and cut me off, maybe I should take that as a sign. HAHA.

Recently I’ve DESTROYED my kitchen attempting to make my own mayo. I don’t think I can bear to share the whole sorted tale with the populace at large but let’s just say that it could’ve been considered for an episode of that show with Ann B where people CANNOT COOK EVEN TOAST.

And yet because I am a stubborn and an audaciously determined (at times) person, I attempted it again yesterday AND BROKE the mayo so close to finishing it that I almost cried. So homemade mayo is done for me. My husband looked at me last night and asked me how long it would be before I tried it again. Obviously that whole stubborn streak isn’t well hidden.

I mentioned on twitter that mayo would join brownies in the list of things I can’t make and Average Jane suggested her brownie recipe as one that would not fail me. My husband is a true chocoholic and brownie lover and so even though I have failed EVERY OTHER TIME (even with every mix I’ve tried, no joke) I will attempt brownies once more, but not homemade mayo, it’s chemical laden fake mayo from here on out….unless I get to visit Jonna and she takes pity on me or that whole commune thing happens.

Lessons learned from my first tutorial:

1) I ramble a lot. I had to cut over 4 + minutes out of this video to get YouTube to accept it.

2) I should’ve turned the iPhone landscape.

3) I probably shouldn’t have used my iPhone at all.

4) I really look HAGGARD when I don’t sleep a full night in multiple weeks.

5) I say “UM” and “Going On” FREQUENTLY

6) I wish I would’ve put lip gloss on, HELLO CHICKEN LIPS

Let me know if this was helpful and if y’all are interested in me doing more…I promise they’ll get better as I do them. I do intend to correct the issues.

In a past life, when I was young and first living in Texas, I spent my days schlepping make-up behind the Origins counter at Foley’s department store. It wasn’t a bad gig, really, I loved (and still do) Origins as a company and a product and people that bought that particular brand of make-up were of the least asshole-ish of those that shopped the cosmetics counters in Foley’s but MAN did working in cosmetics in a department store AT CHRISTMAS blow the nastiest and wartiest and smelliest of goats.

My favorite part of the job was the gratis. Not going to lie. My second favorite part of the job was playing with the make-up. I could give two shits about selling it, honestly, but color is something I am good at and I was willing to put it on anyone that asked, day or night. Of course, I was supposed to push them to buy it, but I just really enjoyed playing with it. So much so that during my down time I just made mock-ups of eyes.

We got these little eyeshadow diagrams that we were supposed to send home with makeover clientele to show them how we had done their make up but when I didn’t have anything better to do? I’d just sit there and play with unusual color combinations. I got started with it because I got asked so many times what I was wearing and frequently would have so many colors on that I would forget and feel like a jackass but, as time went on it just became my thing. Some of my customers started coming in just to see what outlandish color combinations I could make work and if I got something really out there to work on paper they would insist I put it on them and frequently buy the outcome. At training programs I got called out for being able to match skin tones without having to try them on people and for my eye diagram things.

Recently, Christina played around with green eye shadow and posted it on twitter and it reminded me how much fun I used to have with make-up. I’ve long since resorted to just wearing mascara, tinted moisturizer, blush and some gloss and calling it a day but because of that tweet? I actually did a full eye the other night for dinner and this morning I did a horrible eye diagram in photoshop for y’all (it’s much easier on paper with the actual shadow products)

Crappy lighting

I should call these my cammo eyes judging by the shades of greens and golds but in person it doesn’t look quite that crazy and everything is MUCH more blended.

Is this something y’all are interested in? I’d totally add a section to the blog with make-up tutorials or just eye mock-ups/pics if y’all are, um with better pics of course, just let me know.

I’d like to use this space to speak about something that has been bothering me, for just a moment, I thought I was going to be able to let it pass by me, but it’s just not going away and I feel as if I might explode.

When did it become acceptable to slam people for being skinny? Why is it any more acceptable to slam me for being a skinny person than it would be to slam someone of ample size? I would never even think to say some of the things that are said in my presence and yet, no one even thinks twice that they might be hurting my feelings by posting shit like this

and following it with statements like

“I like girl with curves and hips and breasts. not some knock kneed ho’s”
“I prefer a woman who’s hips can keep her pants up.”

Or when I suggest to some former co-workers that they should go to Old Navy and buy some of these awesome pants that I just bought on a crazy good sale, I get “Some of us can’t shop in the toddler section” as a reply.

Or when Angelina Joile (insert several other celebs here) walks on stage at The Golden Globes my brother remarks how disgusting she looks because she’s skinny, I’d bet that she and I are pretty close in size.

I am not anorexic and I eat, plenty in fact. Let me say that again, I am not anorexic. I am not bulimic. I don’t diet and although I have my own body issues (who doesn’t?) this is just how I am. This is how I have always been. I wasn’t either of those things in school when I was SKINNIER and had to turn in a freaking food journal to my counselor because they were sure that I was. I have a fast metabolism. I JUST DO. I am not in the gym 24×7 trying to reach some crazy ideal body image. I don’t expect anyone else to be either. But hey, if you love the gym? Good for you! I also don’t think that everyone has to have the same ideal when it comes to what is attractive to them. Everyone is into what they are into and digs whatever they dig, BUT THINK FOR A FREAKING MINUTE before you are shitty about whatever it is that you don’t. You might just be giving someone you care about a complex about their own body.

People can and do get a complex about being “TOO SKINNY” just as they do about being “TOO FAT” when everyone should just be focused on being “RIGHT FOR THEM” whatever you are, fat or thin, I honestly could give a rat’s ass. I want you to be healthy and HAPPY. HEALTHY AND HAPPY FOR YOU, not some societal imposed “norm”. If you are? Then you are beautiful to me.

Even though I was lax about sending my scarves to my swap peeps, my peeps WERE ON THE BALL and not only sent my scarves out on time but they also included little bonuses, for my birthday, BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME!

This is just my initial post about the scarves I got with some fairly extreme close-up pics because I’m not feeling so great and every shot was marginally blurry if I tried to get everything in the frame, good times. I think the antibiotics didn’t kick my sinus infection all the way OR this wonk ass weather we’ve been having has riled up my allergies enough that I am threatening sinus infection part deaux. UGH.

Anyway, enough bitching, this is a happy post about happy things: CUTE SCARVES FROM LOVELY WOMEN!

From Tara

Teal with pink birds! So cute!

And from Emiliy I received two

First

Skulls! (bonus scarf)

Second

Flowers!

The second picture makes me laugh because the lighting is SO VERY OFF, I am in no way that tan. NO WAY. I seriously am one of the palest people I know, I practically glow from the pale and yet there I am looking all, days in Arizona. Haha.

I shared my photos in the Scarf Swap Flickr Pool, have you joined yet? Join! Share! Let us all see your new lovelies!

I hope everyone enjoyed the swap and that y’all will be back for the flip flop swap this June

I’ll be back with another post in the future which will include info on my bonus items and better, full length pics.

As I mentioned, I turned 37 on Saturday and historically my birthday has not been good. There is usually a fair bit of drama or sickness that tends to happen on or around my birthday and this year was pretty much standard operating procedure what with the sinus infection and dental issues the weeks leading up to it. This year we opted to avoid some of the usual drama, however, and leave town to visit with some friends.

Kristie and her welsh boyfriend were going to be in Austin for the weekend so I decided I wanted to drive over and meet up with them for dinner/drinks and then drive back. Sure, it’s a lot of driving for a few hours but in our youth (HA HA) the hubs and I used to pop over to Austin for gigs and whatnot.

Friday Sprog went to hang with friends after school and then was incommunicado for 3 hours when he had made plans with Willy to go shopping for my birthday present which meant that our previous plan for him to head to the mall with friends and then spend the night while we were in Austin had to be scrapped. I don’t care that he hangs with friends as long as he STAYS IN CONTACT, else what is the point on him having a cell phone on which he is able to send over 7000 texts in a month? SEVEN THOUSAND!! So when he doesn’t stay in contact and check in, especially when his friends are people I don’t know and trust and I am going to be over 2 hours away? Boy gets sent to my sister. I guess that makes me an overbearing parent, but whatevs. I will not be the mother on the news that had “no idea” what her child was up to.

Anyway, so Saturday morning my lovely husband gave me these

and then went with me while I finally spent my Christmas cash shopping for some new clothes. I got some new skinny jeans, a new top (which I posted yesterday) as well as a new skirt, new belt and new navy flats. I tried to buy some jeggings but I just couldn’t do it. It felt as if my calves were being separated from my body. We then hopped in the car and headed for Austin and dinner at a darling restaurant with Kristie and Regan on South Congress. I WISH I lived closer to people and could just hang out with them whenever I wanted.

After dinner some of us (Regan and her hubs bowed out) headed for a couple of drinks on 6th at a bar called Mooseknuckle (eww) and were reminded why we don’t go to 6th and also why we are OLD. Hello douchebags! When we got to the bar it was empty because no one goes out that early, read: before 10 pm. By the time we left (before midnight) it was wall to wall douchebags and half dressed girls dancing to rap music. The bar was showing football on large tvs when we got there, quite the switch.

The drive home was largely uneventful until about Brenham when we were treated to a drunk driving THE WRONG WAY on our side of the freeway IN THE LANE NEXT TO US. Even with our and the car next to us flashing the lights and honking horns, he/she kept right on going and even got into our lane after they passed us. WTF?! There is never a cop when you actually want one.

Sunday we grabbed my favorite cupcakes from Crave and then went to dinner with the fam before going back to their place to watch The Golden Globes. From them, I received the Cuisinart Griddler I have been coveting (which has already been used for burgers and last night when Sprog was taught to make pancakes from scratch) and a mix cd from my brother that I am too scared to listen to as well as my favorite candy from my nephew.

I also received some cash from my MIL which is always nice

Scarf swap update tomorrow!

(Oh PS, I talked to Sprog about the whole “how I dress” concern and he said he would be embarrassed if I dressed like a mom. HAHA. He said that he wouldn’t claim me in public if I dressed any other way than how I do because he has a certain style and my style shouldn’t contradict that. INTERESTING.)

I promise to post about my birthday tomorrow. In fact, I’ll go ahead and write it today and schedule it for tomorrow just to ensure that it gets posted but I wanted to post about this while I was thinking about it. Monday Sprog was off of school and couldn’t find any of his friends to go to the mall with, much to his annoyance, so he had to be content with running me around on my errands. One of my errands was a search (in vain) for some Kate Spade jewelry at TJ Maxx or Marshall’s after seeing R’s score on twitter.

At Marshall’s he spotted a girl he knew and proceeded to text her about them both being shopping with their moms…and she was shocked as per usual. She was under the impression that I was his sister. This weekend I turned 37.

I took this picture

and then later this one of my outfit

by means of comparison I’d like to show you my biological mother and me in our horrible glamor shots (one of the last pictures I have of us together, actually)

I’m 19 in this picture and my mother is 46 so a 9 year difference in age between her then and me now. (this was the same year I got pregnant with Sprog HOLY CRAP)

I’m sure a lot can and will change about my appearance in 9 years but I’m hoping that not so much will change, honestly. I’m investing in a lot of high dollar sunscreens and fancy face creams so that not a lot will change, honestly. I eat a vegetarian diet and I take a multi vitamin. I don’t smoke and I don’t spend a lot of time in the sun. I hardly drink but I do drink a lot of water.

The thing is, I also worry about it. I worry about it being wrong that I do look like I could be my child’s sister instead of it being obvious that I am his mother. I worry about it being uncomfortable for him that when we go out to eat now, we ALWAYS get asked if the checks are separate, like we are friends or siblings instead of parent and child. He laughs about it every time and he says it doesn’t bother him but my mother dressed like a teenager even though she totally wasn’t and it DROVE ME NUTS, so I worry. My mother shopped in the juniors section well into the time that I stopped talking to her which was into her 50′s and when she was also a grandmother, fyi. My mother showed up at my school in her tennis skirts and bloomers because “I have good legs, why not show them?” and OMG, no.

I’m sure that it’s different for girls but I worry that it’s not really that different, that even though he says it’s funny and he says he’s okay with it, he’s just doing that because he’s generally the kid that tries to please. I have no idea how to “dress like a mom” but I usually buy longer skirts and dresses that aren’t skin tight. I also know that he gives me crap because all of my skirts are long. He says they are so long they should be called dresses not skirts and of course my husband would prefer that I show some skin from time to time and so against the judgement of Stacey and Clinton I bought a mini-ish skirt with my Christmas money…the trick is getting me to actually wear it.

So the suck, it really did me in last week…I couldn’t eat solid foods, I felt my faux tooth every second of every day…my mouth was swollen and of course, there was pain.

I turned 37 this weekend and I did some fun stuff which I’ll post about later and hopefully people will start receiving their scarves soon, I can’t wait to hear/see what everyone got (don’t forget to join the flickr pool and add your photos!)

But right now (and lately if I’m being honest) I’m annoyed at quite a few things I feel like I can’t safely blog about anywhere so, in the interest of calming down and returning to posting, I give you three pictures that I took recently

All three were taken around my yard and were done using the same technique. I have a zoom lens that I usually use for macro shots but I had read a post about turning another lens into a DIY macro and decided I had to try it out.

It was a bit of a pain to get successful shots and I had to try on two separate days, but it was fun to be creative and see what I got out of it.

For Christmas my sister asked me for a photo book of some of my nature photography. I had a difficult time selecting images, because I take A LOT of nature photos. A LOT. I have some that I have taken recently that I am really proud of…but I haven’t really shared them…partially because I am probably going to enter a contest with one or more of them but also partially because of horror stories of people stealing other peoples photos and posting them without credit. The internet is a CRAZY place.

2011 aka the year of suck 10th anniversary edition is OVER, HOORAY!

So that means, of course, that all the crap that kept continually going wrong last year is also OVER, HOORAY! Or not. After yesterday, it’s a definite OR NOT. But let me back up a moment and fill y’all in on how things were going before I get to that bit. I haven’t really been posting much or tweeting much or FB’ing nearly at all and the reason for all of this? I have been sick since Christmas. No voice for over a week (even with vocal rest that my dr commanded) due to a sinus infection and acute laryngitis. The first few days were spent freezing my ass off in a 60 degree house underneath a down comforter and being fully dressed. Awful. No sleep. Horrible head and throat pain. Side effects from the anti-biotics include trying not to vomit for at least an hour a day, for 10 days. I will be done with them on the 12th-two days before my 37th b-day.

Then a week ago I was eating a soft taco for dinner when one of my teeth BROKE IN HALF. Yes. Fortunately I felt it happen and didn’t end up swallowing the tooth shard and also fortunate that it didn’t hurt. Even during the whole week I had to wait for a dental appt, I experienced no tooth pain…but ate soft foods for several days and only on one side of my mouth.

Yesterday was the dental appt.

I walked in at 12 figuring that something was going to happen with the tooth but not exactly sure of what. I also walked in FREAKED OUT because I haven’t been to a dentist in a ridiculous amount of years. I hate the drill, I hate the after pain (I got fillings last time with a different dentist and they did such a horrible job I couldn’t eat on one side of my mouth FOR MONTHS) I hate it all.

I left yesterday after 2 pm. OVER TWO HOURS being drilled on, having my tooth FILED, having a post CEMENTED INTO MY HEAD, having a root canal, GETTING MY GUMS LASERED and finally a temporary crown inserted. It was like a horror movie come to life. Have you ever had to smell your own flesh burning? OMG. The dentist was concerned at the amount my gums had grown into my tooth in the week since it broke and told me that she might have to cut that back. She also told me that it would be hugely sensitive and most likely painful even though I didn’t have any pain prior to walking in there so she shot me FULL UP on novocaine. 4 full syringes worth, I was numb TO MY EYE and yet I could still feel some of the gum work, they were that sensitive.

After all that work? I was given NO MEDS to manage pain. She told me to load up on Advil as soon as I got home and not wait for the pain to actually kick all the way in as by then it would be too late. Fortunately for me, I had some 800 mg motrin at home but even with that, I still feel my gums THROBBING in my head. My mouth was hugely swollen until almost 8 last night and even this morning my gums are still throbbing and swollen and tender.

$1242 WITH INSURANCE.

Oh and I have a freaking colonoscopy scheduled for the 17th but you can’t have taken any pain meds for 5 days prior which would be the 12th. I HIGHLY DOUBT my face is going to stop hurting in two days.

$500 with insurance (have to meet this year’s deductible)

So what up 2012? YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER THAN YOUR PREDECESSOR!