Mar
2
March 2, 2007
Thanks to clickety-clicking around on Flickr, I am currently obsessed with the notion of customizing all my pants (and Riley’s pants! and JB’s pants! and Dog’s furry flanks!) with a pair of pistols. SO. COOL.
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Say, have you ever been in bed with your bed-mate, and you’re drifting off into sleep, you’re in that fuzzy stage of nearly being out completely and you’re cradled in comfort and rest and peacefulness and all of a sudden you rip a startling, rapid-gunfire-sounding fart? Which you had no warning about whatsoever, due to your various mental functions shutting down for the night, and now any hope of peace is gone as you lie there completely frozen, your eyes wide and staring at nothing, hoping against hope that it sounded louder in your own head and that no one else noticed? And in the darkness comes an amused snicker, and lo, all dignity is lost. Your ass has betrayed you.
Not that . . . I mean, I think I read about that in a book once.
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You know what, in my opinion, both sucks and blows? Fat-free coffee creamer. There are things in life that shouldn’t be fat-free, and coffee creamer is one of them. It’s watery and crappy and the nondairy variety is made out of cornstarch, or plastic, or something.
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I feel weirdly guilty that I’m not trying to turn Riley into a potty prodigy. On the one hand, I think he’s too young, period, but I keep reading about parents who started putting Little Lord Boogerface on the potty when he was 12 months and after lots of hard work, only a year later, he was potty trained! I’m all for early learning but shouldn’t he be, I don’t know, a little more capable of grokking the general potty concepts first?
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Riley hugs us both goodnight before bed now. Man, it’s cute.
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We haven’t had a birdfeeder in months because of the rat problem that cropped up as a result of seeds falling on the ground, and I’ve been missing the birds. Last weekend we went to one of those Wild Birds Unlimited stores—well, JB did while I waited with Riley in the car, because we tried to take him in and it was PROBLEMATIC—and a very nice lady let him know that part of the problem is the type of birdseed we were buying. If you get the kind that is just seeds, shelled sunflower seeds, then the birds don’t get in there and kerfuffle around spraying hulls and crap all over the ground. It’s like a no-waste type of seed, they eat all of it instead of dropping parts. We also bought a birdfeeder with a tray underneath that catches anything that does drop. So the birds are back, and so far, no rodents. Awesome!
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The birdseed thing leads me into the question I wanted to ask you guys. If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? Putting aside actual restrictions like money or time or even skill.
I think I would most enjoy a job where I help people, in some creative way, by applying some specialized knowledge. I’m not saying I’d like to work in a birdseed store, but I think there’s something immensely satisfying about listening to someone describe a problem or interest, and being able to help them out, and hopefully making a positive impact in their life. Jobs I’m not actually interested in but hit this area perfectly: floral designers, travel agents, printers, wedding coordinators.
Maybe something that involves writing, but done for individuals rather than companies. A book that people could enjoy would be great, but I also like the idea of more personal, one-on-one interactions.
Other, less vague dream jobs: comic book author/illustrator (remember, I said we could ignore SKILL), Pulitzer-winning journalist, creepy consumer marketing trends analyst for Giant Conglomerate Corp, and online small business retailer.
What about you?
Mar
1
March 1, 2007
Yes, I’m talking about cleaning again. And not even in a useful, motivating sort of way like Swistle’s been doing (I love the picture of her twins on that entry. Furiously bleating toddlers are so hilarious when they don’t belong to me), although I do have one handy homemaking tip for you: spraying a bit of perfume onto a lamp’s lightbulb really does make a room smell nice.
Oh, and if your garbage disposal starts to stink, ramming a cut-up lime or lemon into its grind-hole then running it for a minute or so usually does the trick. Using wadded-up newspaper works much better to clean glass or a mirror than paper toweling (no smears, no lint residue). Also, washing your face with honey is supposedly great for your skin.
There! Now I’m practically Hints from fucking Heloise over here. Although I cannot for the life of me figure out why you’re supposed to wash out your coffee machine with vinegar.
ANYWAY. So we met with the housecleaner, who did a walkthrough of our house and talked with us about what we’d like them to focus on. The bad news is, she’s expensive, $90 a visit for a biweekly service. Each visit includes two cleaners working for about 1.5 hours, doing floors (vacuuming and mopping), dusting, counters, showers, toilets, tubs, etc.
I don’t know, it sounds pretty awesome to me. JB is grouchy about the cost and that’s exactly why we’ve canceled housecleaning in the past, so either 1) we both decide it’s worth the investment, 2) we decide it’s too expensive and we figure out something else (a cheaper service, or less-frequent visits), or 3) I decide it’s worth it and every time JB bitches I hand him a bottle of 409 and tell him to go ahead and get cracking.
We’ll see. Our first visit is scheduled for Monday.
In other news that is even more thrilling, except for the part where it’s not, I signed up for Weight Watchers Dot Com, which I’ve been diligently using for, let’s see, about 24 hours now. The website reminded me that I’d registered once before in 2004, when I’d listed my weight as 146, which was sort of encouraging in a way. I mean, at least I haven’t porked up very much since then. Silver lining, silver lining!
I’d forgotten about the obsessive little thrill of entering foods in the online tracker tool, watching things get converted to points and occasionally recoiling in horror. I like the system, really, because it forces me to consider both nutrition/calories and portion size and get realistic about what I’m eating. For instance, the KettleMania “Kinda Sweet, Kinda Salty” popcorn I love with all of my heart and soul and would eat every single night around 10 PM if only I had a constant supply in the house? Has, like, eleventy jillion grams of fat per serving. That’s . . . um, I don’t have a converter handy, but that’s basically a whole shitload of points. I think if I recorded it in my points tracker it would crash the website, immediately after displaying a blinking message: “WHAT ARE YOU, RETARDED?”.
I’m doing the “Flex Plan”, which gives me 20 points per day to expend on the various things I put in my mouth (what?), and I’m hoping I can stay with it long enough to see some real progress. Full disclosure: I’m also hoping (in a fearful, second-guessing kind of way, of course) our attempts at pregnancy this month were successful, so I’m kind of at cross-purposes here, but until the stick tells me otherwise the focus is on belly reduction.
Too bad I don’t have a good close for this yawnworthy entry, maybe something about strippers. How about Dog, instead?
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