First Quarter Review

Well with the first quarter of the year officially closed, I felt it was a good time for a review of my progress.  Unfortunately, despite making only two goals for the year 2012, I have made no progress toward either in these past three months.  In fact, I’ve cancelled one of my goals altogether.

Have you seen this site?  F*** Your Noguchi Coffee Table  (Please do not click that link if you’re allergic to the f-word.)  It’s a hilarious site mocking all things in hipster homemaking.  Every decorating trend you’ve seen over and over and over, it’s been singled out on this site.  Garlands, Acapulco Chairs, Frame Clusters, Tree Stumps, Maps, you name it. I’ll admit it did get a little personal the day I saw the rainbow bookshelf there, but I have seen more than a few of them so I guess I can accept that.  But then I saw this: Terrarium Tuesday. Hold on. Terrariums?  I just started thinking of making one and they’re already overplayed and annoying?  WHAT?  I was so embarrassed by this fact that I completely shelved the terrarium idea.  Goal #1 for 2012 has officially been crossed off the list.

I’m afraid that goal #2 doesn’t look very promising either.  Although in the abstract, I love the thought of going to Canada, making actual plans to head north is just not happening.  Instead I’ve been making plans to head south.  We keep thinking here and there about heading to St. Martin again with our friends this January.  We’re trying to weigh our desperate craving for sun and sand against the highest of high seasons on the island and traveling with a family of five.  Decisions are still up in the air, but in the meantime, I downloaded a dangerous app on the iPad called iCruise.  Search by destination, date, departure port, whatever you like, and you get a wonderful list of cruises that match your parameters.

There’s a slim chance that Luke could get the week of his birthday in early June off, so a quick search of cruises to Bermuda in early June finds an awesome deal on the exact week for a cruise leaving out of reasonably nearby Boston. Luke’s always wanted to go to Bermuda and I’ve always wanted to go anywhere that isn’t Connecticut, so this would be perfect!  We’re just looking at this point and trying (unsuccessfully) not to get our my hopes up.

Do you see my problem? Show me Canada and show me Bermuda and I will always choose the destination where I can go barefoot and lay on the beach with a rum punch in hand.  Sorry Canada, 2012 might not be your year.

Love

You know what I love? I love my iPhone. I can’t even put this under the What I Love category because it’s so much more than a great musician or floor cleaner.  This is the ultimate.  It’s an iPhone.

I knew I’d like an iPhone but I didn’t realize how much I’d LOVE it.  I was jealous from the beginning that AT&T and then Verizon had the iPhone and I was a loyal Sprint customer left to carry around both a phone and an iPod while pining over all the pretty iPhones everyone else had. Until this past October, that is! That’s when the the iPhone came to Sprint and I got up early and waited in line like all of the other fools to get my little mitts on a beautiful iPhone 4S.

I was worried, at first, and I’m still not entirely comfortable with paying extra for the data plan.  That’s something I never had with my old phone, but the longer I use my iPhone and the more handy-dandy it proves itself to be, the easier it is to pay that bill.

When the world ended for that brief while in October (the SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011 and ensuing statewide power outage) my iPhone proved itself to be worth every penny as I checked in hourly on the CL&P site for restoration updates. I streamed podcasts through one of my new apps so I could listen to something other than my own frustrated breathing while the power was out. It allowed me to vent on Twitter and Facebook and play Words With Friends to take my mind off the cold.  It was my connection to the outside world and I would have paid a million dollars for it. (I just about did when my screwed-up-six-ways-to-Sunday bill came in for October, but we won’t talk about that.)

Love, pure love. And I haven’t even gotten to Siri. She’s is my personal assistant who responds to voice commands to send texts and add items to my calendar.  She looks up things online and tells me how many centimeters in an inch, if I ask.  She also scolds me when someone new learns about her and inevitably wants to sexually harass her. (Just so you know, if you tell her that you’re horny, she gives you a list of adult stores and strip joints nearby, but if you ask her what she’s wearing, she says “LISA, I think you have the wrong assistant.”)

The GPS gave us instant directions on the go one day when we were in the woods of Coventry trying to find a place to launch the boat. The camera is amazing—better than my actual point-and-shoot camera from only a couple of years ago. The sound is so incredible that you don’t even need speakers. I can’t say enough about it.

There is a problem when you love a delicate piece of technology as much as I love my iPhone, though.  I have repeated nightmares about losing it and having it stolen. Last weekend my heart skipped several beats when I missed the pocket of my purse and dropped it right onto the concrete floor (phone was fine, case broke, THANK GOODNESS). So a little iPhone anxiety for a whole lot of convenience and awesomeness. I’d say it’s totally worth it.

Not as Much Fun as We Had Hoped

Well, the force was with us, (we watched The Empire Strikes Back three times), but sadly so was Croup, and a late night trip to the emergency room.

Cameron looked like he wasn’t feeling well on Friday after school and woke up at 3am with a bad rattling cough and a fever. Magical Motrin and an extra pillow and he was back sleeping and feeling fine. He even woke me up at 6 on Saturday by saying brightly, “Auntie Lisa, remember a while ago when we saw Happy Feet? I have to find Happy Feet.” To which I replied, “huh… what??”

My mom came on Saturday to take over for the evening and ended up calling me around 11 on Saturday night to ask if I’d come stay at the house while Alex slept and she took Cameron to the ER because he was having trouble breathing. Too anxious to sleep, I watched a movie and read and washed dishes and did whatever I could to keep occupied until they got home around 4am with a diagnosis of Croup. Poor guy, he sounds so bad, but he’s in good spirits. My poor mom, recovering from a cold herself, got only about an hour of sleep before Cameron woke her again and then Alex woke up, rested and raring to go.

I stopped in again for a couple of hours yesterday so my mom could run out to pick up more prescriptions for Cameron, and he seems to be doing better. He still has the awful cough and sunken-looking eyes, but when I asked him how he was feeling, he said, “Good, can I have a snack?” so I think he’s on the road to recovery.

Not the fun weekend we had hoped for, but we survived. I slept for about 9 hours last night, that helped. I’m hoping that my mom did the same. Maybe by tomorrow I’ll feel back to normal. How do moms do it? I just don’t know.

The Difference Between Me and Madonna

I showed up for jury duty today and no one cared.  There were no paparazzi, just metal detectors and a roomful of bored, twitchy people who didn’t want to be there.  Those who had served in the past shared their war stories of what was going to happen to us, and a man behind me fell asleep during the riveting videos about the judicial system and the “honor” of being selected as a juror.  We were told that we were being selected for a civil trial that was expected to last two weeks, and although I was curious to hear the details of the trial, being away from my job for two weeks in March would spell disaster, so I was excused with eight other people clever enough to come up with good reasons not to serve.  Because I was excused for a “hardship” and not dismissed for being a democrat, or a gun-owner, or left handed or whatever crazy reason one might not be chosen for, this was not considered time served and I could be called back to serve again in as little as two weeks.  In the days leading up to today, I was so nervous and anxious, and I dreaded showing up today, for fear of being chosen.  Now that I’ve gone through it, I’m not as scared.  I’m actually looking forward to begin called again, I think I’d be the perfect juror, actually.  If you’ve ever tried to debate me or declare your concrete opinion on a subject in my general vicinity, you’ve probably witnessed my irritating ability to look at every situation from every possible point of view.  I’m open-minded and I love philosophical debates, my favorite topic being “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it…” You know that one.  Yes, I could debate you all night on that one.  So anyhow, back to jury duty, if it was any other time than those weeks in March, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal.  Maybe they’ll call me back in the summer and I’ll get a chance to irritate the crap out of eleven other “angry men“.  Wouldn’t that be fun?

Bits and Things

I got home from work early enough last night to go for a walk by the river with Molly and still catch the 5:00 rerun of Gilmore Girls. I really miss Gilmore Girls. It’s like my friends have moved away and haven’t written. Does that make me pathetic? TV people are like friends to me? Maybe so, but I sill miss Lorelai and Luke. And especially Logan. Oddly enough I’ve seen Luke and Kirk as characters on different WB shows, and Sookie is on Samantha Who? but that’s all wrong. They all should just go back to Stars Hollow and make me happy. OK, enough about that. Time to make some real-life friends.

Did you see the eclipse last night? It was very cool. Luke’s telescope was in the basement and I’m far too clumsy to be trusted with moving it outside so I looked at the moon with binoculars. It was beautiful. I know you could see it with the naked eye, but with binoculars you could see more detail, and color, and plus I’m nearsighted so any help I can get is appreciated.

I finished our taxes last night and I have to say, Turbo Tax is very cool. It’s written so well and calmly, like they hired phone operators from the suicide line at the crisis center to help write it. It’s all very much filled with the “don’t worry, we’ll get through it, let me walk you through it step-by-step” kind of reassurances that I need. Doing taxes scares the crap out of me, not because I think I’ll do it wrong, I have wise Turbo Tax on my side after all, what scares me is the thought of owing the IRS. One year right after we got married we did owe, BIG time. I can’t handle that again. All of the personal financial analysis unnerves me, too. Did I donate enough to charity this year? Probably not. Did I contribute to my IRA? No. Should I have more taken out of my pay to go into my 401K? Most definitely. This year, too, I officially downgraded my business from a Schedule C-requiring business to a hobby. I hate that word. Hobby. Ick. But I’ve been making more things for fun and less for profit over the past couple of years and making a $200 annual profit after deducting expenses doesn’t exactly make it a business. Oh well, I’m a “hobbyist” with big ideas.

I dropped off a giant bag of clothes and things to the salvation Army the other day and took home this little goblet. Chalice? Candy dish? Whatever it is is fell into my recent obsession with white glass and only cost $1.49. I think that’s a good ration to keep: bring giant bag in, take small cup out.  I also bought a small white hobnail glass footed bowl (could there be more words to describe that?) on Saturday at the antique store when I bought the Drink Spikes.  That one was a whole $4.  Big spender, huh?

I saw Across the Universe last night.  I’m not sure what I think about it other than everyone in the movie reminded me of someone else, and not the Beatles, just someone else.  Lucy looked like Jenny from Forest Gump, Max looked like the blond hobbit who’s on Lost, it was all very distracting.  I loved that it was very much like Moulin Rouge with the different musical arrangements (the slow version of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sung by Prudence was absolutely gorgeous, and that reminds me I wanted to look for it in iTunes), but then it started to resemble The Wall and that just bored me.  It followed the late-60′s style of movie-making where the story is going along well and then the scene jumps to a dim and smoky jazz club for a 20-minute musical interlude with trippy animation.  But then again, perhaps they made it that way on purpose.  Watch it yourself and tell me what you think.

It’s going to snow again tomorrow.  This snow thing has lost its charm.  I’m ready for spring.  My friend Dan from Florida sent out pictures yesterday of a recent trip to Disney with his wife and daughter and they were all wearing shorts and sandals.  That made me painfully sad.  Let’s all look at last night’s sunset and think happy thoughts of warm weather.

The Mall on President’s Day (alternate title: What? Are You Crazy?)

That’s right, Black Friday shopper that I am, I was a bit scared to enter the mall on President’s Day, but my mom and my sister persuaded me and so I went. It actually wasn’t as bad as I had expected, but we were there with the boys which meant spending time at the play area, and play area = the center of the crazy. I’m not exactly a germophobe but with all the kids and all the runny noses and sneezing, that place makes me want to go home and shower in bleach. The boys played for a while, the grownups chatted, and we ran into my cousin who was there with her two kids, so it wasn’t really bad at all.

After plague central the play area, we grabbed a bite at the food court and then rode the carousel, to which I said, “there’s a carousel in the mall?” From the time it opened until the time I actually got a job in the mall, I practically lived there. Now it seems like years since I was last there. And being there makes me feel old. Not only do I look like a mom walking around holding hands with cute little Alex (who complimented me on my shoes, what a gentleman), but most of the punks hanging around the mall are probably young enough the BE my kids! It’s painful to realize that not only do you refer to yourself as a grownup (and in the third person for some reason) but you actually ARE a grownup.  Sigh…

It was a dark and stormy night…

Early Sunday afternoon, Luke and I went for a walk down by the river to see how much the recent rains had changed things. It was beautiful and stark and everything was bright and icy, it was a nice time for a walk. Today, I’m sure it’s all different.

We got pounded last night with another big rain storm and another several inches of the wet stuff. Around 1:30am I woke up because I thought I heard something. Usually I just ignore what I thought I heard and go back to bed, but this time I just felt uneasy and I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I rolled over and looked at the clock, then realized that the house was really dark. You don’t realize how much light all of your various electronic things put out until you lose power. The alarm clock face wasn’t lit, the glowing power button on the computer in the office wasn’t casting a glow into the hallway. The light from the answering machine and the clock on the stove weren’t lit. The power was out AGAIN and the house was pitch dark.

I looked out toward the closest neighbor’s house and it looked like his power was out, too. Up on the street, I can usually see a streetlight or two through the trees – nothing. Even the lights on route 6, which you can usually make out in the dark during the winter with no leaves on the trees, they were out, too.  I grabbed my cell phone, threw a log on the fire, found a flashlight and climbed back into bed.  Then I started thinking.  What are the chances that anyone else is up at 1:30am to notice that the power is out and call the power company?  If I wait until the neighbors call, it could be morning before it’s fixed.  So I called.  Connecticut Light & Power has an automated hotline where you can call and report an outage or check the status of one.  I entered my information, they told me I was the first one to report the outage, thank you for calling, I hung up and went back to sleep.

An hour later I woke up to Molly barking her head off at the gigantic CL&P truck coming up our driveway.  I grabbed her and we watched to see what in the world this guy was doing.  He put his ridiculous strobe lights on (because, you know there’s a lot of traffic to watch for when you’re parked a quarter mile down a private dirt driveway) and he came to the side of the house to look at our meter.  He looked up in the woods with his flashlight (our power lines are underground, by the way) then came to the door and – at 2:30am – knocked.  I opened the door and appeared in all the glory you’d expect for someone who should have been asleep at this time, I said hello, he looked at me and said, I kid you not, “you’ve got no power here.”  Ya think??  He asked for help locating our transformer, then asked if he could drive over our flooded, muddy lawn.  I was too tired to complain and I really wanted to get the power back on so I said fine.

I went back and laid in bed and started to think… why is he looking at my transformer?  Was it not obvious that the entire western side of Andover is dark.  Now I understand that it’s 2:30 in the morning, but there are streetlights and glowing doorbell buttons, and no house is truly ever dark.  So why is he checking MY transformer?  Shouldn’t he be looking at the lines on the street?  Whatever, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  Another while later the big truck comes backing toward the house and attempts to back up next to my little car and I get to see strobe lights in my bedroom, hear Molly barking like an idiot, and listen to reverse beepers for the next five minutes of the 27-point turn it took him to turn around.   Then he left, it was 3am, the power was still off, but at least it was quiet and I could fall back to sleep.

A short while later I heard the delightful beep of the answering machine and the microwave as the power miraculously came back on.  I was happy, I set my alarm clock from the time on my cell phone and fell back to sleep smiling.  And then the strobe lights were back.   What the??  Mr. CL&P was back in the driveway, but was nice enough not to drive over the lawn again, instead he walked back to the transformer, for what reason I do not know, then got in his truck and left once again.  It’s now 4am.

I fell back to sleep and woke up at 6am.  I turned the TV on and figured I’d relax for another hour before my alarm went off at 7.  Not really paying much attention to the TV, the weather came on just before my alarm was set to go off and the weather guy said it was 7:56am.  WHAT?  It’s supposed to be 6:56, not 7:56.  I’m an hour late!

So needless to say, I’m not in the best shape today.  It’s taken a while just to type this because I can’t seem to spell or focus for more than a few minutes in a row.  I left the house without my glasses on, but luckily remembered before I got too far from home (no wonder everything looked blurry).  I seriously need some more sleep.  How do you new moms do it?  One night of getting up every couple of hours and I can barely manage to breathe and blink at the same time.  I have big hopes of getting more than two consecutive hours of sleep tonight, I might just get them here at my desk today the way things are going.

Excuses, Excuses

I didn’t get home until 10:30 last night.  After yoga, Andrea dragged me to the mall and forced me to use her coupon and buy a cute new jacket at NY&Co. for only $10.  She’s mean, isn’t she?  Then we went to Barnes & Noble to try to find some books that aren’t preachy and religious that would give some answers about heaven to my very analytical and curious 5 year-old nephew who has lately been obsessed with the topic.  Something like 101 Facts About Heaven.  Andrea and family don’t go to church or talk about religion, and other than mentioning that Grandpapa and Sydney have gone to heaven, no one talks about god or heaven but lately it’s been on his mind and he won’t drop it.   It makes me smile because he thinks just like me and I find it funny, but I can’t imagine being Andrea and having to answer impossible questions like “does it snow in heaven?”  or “when God dies, who will be in charge of heaven?”

Really I’m just trying to come up with an excuse why I haven’t scanned my drawings yet.  I think it’s Andrea’s fault.  Tonight, I promise I’ll have them scanned and up on Flickr.  In the meantime, check out the cute mug-to-be that I’m crocheting.  I saw the idea on someone’s blog last week and now I can’t remember who it was.  Oh well, thank you brilliant blogger lady whoever you are.  It’s cute, isn’t it?  If I don’t get dragged out and forced to shop again tonight I should be able to put the handle on and finish it (after I scan my drawings, of course) and maybe even have a picture of it for you tomorrow.  Oh the excitement.

Oh, Hi There, Remember Me?

I’m sorry, it’s been nutty at work lately and we had a busy weekend and I’m so far behind n everything.  Well, everything but my Drawing 365, which I’ve been very good at keeping of top of.  Scanning my drawings, I haven’t been too on top of that, but I should catch up today or tomorrow.  Brenda of Secret Agent Josephine, one of my daily blog reads, stared her own daily drawing exercise a couple of days ago.  Funny, everyone is realizing that they need to draw more!

So what else is new?

I went through another I-hate-my-hair-I-want-to-cut-it-all-off phase again.  My sister, who thankfully is used to my crazy, took it all well.  She gave me a cut and some highlights and politely nodded when I said why don’t you just shave it all off.

After the haircut, I went to CVS to buy more things to help me stop hating the way I look and found something wonderful and miraculous that I now love.  Sometimes I’m too lazy after Luke goes to work at night to wash my face and get my makeup off.  Bad, I know, but it’s after midnight most nights and I’m just too tired to be bothered.  Then I found these Pond’s Makeup Remover Towelettes, they’re wonderful, quick and easy.  A little too perfumey, but the work well and my flaky winter patches of dry skin are disappearing.  It’s a miracle!

This weekend we committed to buy a wood-fired furnace for the house.  Yikes!  It’s a big investment but it’s so exciting to think that the whole house will be warm next winter.  Not just the basement and the living room – the areas closest to the wood stove – but the bedrooms and even the bathroom will be warm!  And the warmth will be from wood, not $4 per gallon oil.  I’m very excited.  And the furnace sits outside and looks cute, like a little smokehouse or sugar shack.  We’ll be putting it in this spring when the ground thaws.  Anyone want to buy a beautiful Jotul wood stove?

We had to join the rest of America and take out a home equity line of credit in order to buy the furnace, and of course the bank convinced us why it would be best to ask for more than we need.  We now have about five times the credit limit that we need which led to all sorts of dreaming this weekend.  Hmm… I think we need a new washer and dryer, or maybe a new motorcycle for me, or maybe a hippo…  No, we’ll be good, but we are planning to pay off my student loans and maybe Luke’s truck.  We’ll see.  Motorcycle season is coming up quickly.

Sunday I heard there was this big football game on?  Anybody watch it?  Luke had to go to bed before the Superbowl started so he wasn’t planning to see the game, and I really couldn’t care less about football, I was planning to watch a movie instead, but I was so tired Sunday evening after running around and buying a furnace (gasp!) and visiting friends, and stopping off to grab a late lunch.  I laid down with Luke thinking I’d take a little nap, and ended up sleeping from 7pm to 11pm when Luke had to get up, then going back to bed around 1am and sleeping until 7am.  I was exhausted.  Spending money and visiting friends can be tiring, I guess.

I woke up late this morning and almost forgot about voting.   Oh no!  But I did vote, and I felt like I had gone back in time with the scan cards instead of the lever machines.  I miss the big lever, that was the fun of voting.  Oh well, everyone get out there and vote today!
Tonight I go to yoga with my sister, it seems like I was just there a couple of days ago.  I am really happy with Lotus Yoga and the teachers there.  My body has been feeling good and my back hasn’t been hurting.  It’s amazing to be pain-free and not feel like you’re fighting with your body to get through the day.

Well, I promise to get my act together today and have my pictures and drawings up very soon.  I have new yarn to show you and a little crochet project I started, plus pictures of Molly and the icebergs in the river.  So many things to share.

Wild Yoga

OK, maybe it wasn’t wild, but it was loud, that’s for sure.  Day two of Andrea and Lisa’s Wild Adventures centered on trying out a newish yoga studio in Manchester called Lotus Yoga.  Now, I’ve been to many, many yoga classes.  Whether Kripalu or Hatha, professional studio or community center, they’ve all been one thing: quiet.  Generally you walk in to a dimly lit room with soft music playing and people gently stretching to get ready for the class.  So imagine my surprise when we walked into a loud, raucous room of chatty ladies at Lotus.  It seemed so wrong.  Like throwing a party in a library.  But we went for it and found our spots in the crowd.  The instructor, Melissa, came in and began to settle the crowd.  The chatting and laughing quieted, and then the instructor began to talk.  And talk and talk.  In my head I was thinking, “Oh, I’m so not coming back again.  This place is too talky.”  Andrea told me later that she was thinking the same thing.  But then the class started and it was wonderful.  Melissa was upbeat and motivating.  She led us through some combinations of poses I’ve never seen which made the same old favorites seem fresh and new.  An hour and a half later and I was wishing it wouldn’t end.   I forget how much I love yoga classes until I sit in on one.  It’s so much better than doing it alone at home where you can cheat and not hold a pose for long, or skip the ones you don’t like.  We’re hoping to join the Tuesday night class as more than just drop-ins as long as Andrea’s schedule will allow it.  I think you should join us!