Five Good Things

1.) I went on vacation. It was glorious.

2.) I might be back from the vacay, but hey – makes for a four-day week.

3.) My rowing team gets back on the water soon. This is way better than indoor training.

4.) Spring has pretty much sprung. I replaced my mukluks with my galoshes.

5.) After a lot of debate within myself, I managed to put together a really fair proposal for some extra stuff work wants from me. I feel like I am being fair to both of us and will be comfortable with whether or not they accept my proposal

3.14 Confession

3.14 Pi, not misquoting John.

Due to this song by Hard ‘N Phirm…

I totally know pi out to forty-six digits beyond the decimal point.  If you know me, you should ask me some time.  I’ll unintentionally recite it with robotic intonation.

Everything Is Clear…except my vision

I went to the eye doctor today; it turns out I should have gone a solid six months ago.  (Confession: I do not follow the official guidelines and am on my own biennial plan.)  I’m due for an appointment next month, but since my right contact seemed a bit foggy I decided to go early, so as to get a current prescription and buy new ones.  (You cannot order contacts with an expired prescription; prescriptions are valid for one year.)  I know my contacts are old and assumed that to be the issue.  Contacts don’t last forever, you know.  Um, there were other, greater, issues.

1.) My formerly stable vision?  Yeah, no so much.  Ol’ righty is a disaster.  My left eye didn’t change much, so it’s still all right for me to drive wearing my contacts.  (I asked.)

2.) I knew my lens were a little dated, but turns out they are four YEARS old.  Whoops.  I gave new meaning to “extended” wear.

3.) I was wearing my contacts on the opposite eyes from which they were intended.  That explains a lot.

I ordered new lenses.  Going forward, I will be following the standard “annual exam” guidelines.

Peanut, Peanut Butter, AND RECALL!

recalled peanut butter

I totally bought – and ate – peanut butter affected by a recall.

I rarely buy the reduced fat; I usually buy something fattier and more natural.  This time, I thought it would be something good and healthy to do for myself.

I was wrong.

Five Good Things

1.) In conjunction with my four-day-weekend project, I am going on vacation at the end of the week.

2.) Because I am a grown up, there was no reason for me not to have a dinner entirely of cheese…so I did.  Osteoporosis prevention, etc.

3.) On Sunday, I went to one of my favorite brunch places in tundra.  I gobbled up their pork belly, poached eggs, polenta, and an english muffin with a lovely bellini.  I love me the brunch.

4.) Gas where I work is twenty cents cheaper PER GALLON than the gas where I live.

5.) It’s less than six months until I move away from the tundra!

Winter Survival Tip #3

One of my best winter survival tricks for tundra living is quite simple: leave.  Get out.  Go somewhere, preferably warm and sunny, but at the very least somewhere else.  Winter is a great time for visits of obligation; it’s a better time for fun vacations, but sometimes a body needs to work within certain restrictions.  A required family trip to your mismatched Nader’s Raider aunt and “Romney is too liberal” bellowing uncle might not be the most pleasant experience, but if they live in Florida, it is a lot more pleasant if you can couple the visit to them with one to some sunshine and temperatures above freezing.  Ideally you can take a week or weekend for fun – cheer on your team at a spring training baseball game, watch the whales migrate in Cabo, surf in Hawaii – but sometimes it is necessary to be a bit practical.  Vitamin D is a practical need; if only I could get my insurance to let me apply airfare to my deductible.

Besides the benefit of a break from snow and ice, taking a break from the tundra also gives you something to look forward to…regardless of the weather here, I will not have to scrape ice off my car to go to work next Monday – I won’t be near my car and I’m not going to work!  Win.  It’s a mental, physical, and emotional break and it is necessary.

So!  Tundra.  You are on notice.  If you are not significantly warmer and sunnier, preferably with longer days, by Thursday  I AM LEAVING.  One of us has to make a change; I accept that it will likely be me.

 

I Chopped Off a Foot…Twelve Inches of Hair

Image from Pantene's Website

I keep waiting to feel sad, but it’s just not happening.  My friends who’ve already done this warned me that I’d be sad.  I’ll cry, they cautioned, it will take awhile to get used to the change.  The latter part is true for sure, but not in a negative way.  I’m chronically squeezing out too much shampoo and then too much conditioner.  As someone raised as a Lutheran Scot in the Midwest, I definitely feel guilty about that waste, but not sad.

A week and a one-half ago, I cut off twelve inches of hair which I donated to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths Program.  This program’s mission is to provide wigs to women who lose their hair due to cancer treatments.  (I considered donating to Locks of Love, which makes wigs for children.  However, most LoL recipients suffer from alopecia and cancer is a more personal cause for me and my family.  I looked into both organizations and both are solid causes.)  The last time my hair was this short, I still had baby teeth and Mr. Reagan was clamoring for Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down that wall.”  It’s clearly been awhile.  I did maintain enough length that my hair is roughly at my shoulders and I can pull it back into a perky (short) little ponytail.  Still, it feels kind of crazy.  I reach back to touch it all the time, to make sure it’s there, but it’s also not all there.

Five Good Things

1.) I made lentil soup last night and it is amazing, particularly as leftovers.

2.) My favorite Buckeye made a random trip to my tundra last Saturday, so I got to see her!  It was wonderful and almost makes me want to visit Ohio so that we can spend more time together.  (Of states that I have visited, Ohio is my least favorite.)

3.) I will be home from work by 4:30pm tomorrow and have the whole evening free.  Granted, I’ll probably use it to do practical things like laundry and sweep the floors, but that’s still better than 11pm laundry.  The probability is also high that I will relax on the couch, eat my leftover Chinese takeout, and watch TV.  50-50, probably.

4.) I found a check that I thought I lost.  It is only a little old, so it is still good.

5.) One of my good friends received an acceptance to her top-choice graduate school.  As an added bonus, the school is in the town I’m moving to in the fall!

No Smoking, Yes Chestbumping

On Friday night, I spent a spontaneous and spirited moment as a public-service announcement.  I left a bar (with my friend – “Safety is no accident!”) and there were two guys smoking outside of it, with their non-smoking friend.  Being me, I probably said hello and must have made some comment about smoking or something or maybe Friend did, because one guy spiked his cigarette into the remnants snow.*  The other guy said, “Well, I haven’t had a cigarette in five weeks.”  To which Friend said, “Well why start now?”  But!  I promptly quipped, “George Bush wants you to smoke.”  Well!  He threw it right down and smiled.  So, I cheered him “YEAH!” and we immediately knew we had to chestbump for that.  Then I chestbumped his buddy who previously threw down his smoke.  And then I chestbumped the guy who doesn’t smoke, because hey, non-smoker!  The last guy told me he was going to go all in for our bump.  I embraced it, committing my total mass as well, and did not vomit all over him.  And then we had a happy walk home.

The End.

*Littering is a secondary issue

Five Good Things

1.) My produce market randomly had a fantastic selection of prime produce yesterday.  Mango, blueberries, peaches, asparagus, and CORN ON THE COB all will be devoured by me this week – in addition to the usual spinach, apples, and grapefruits.  I am pumped. 

2.) The antithesis of produce and my guilty pleasure, Stouffer’s mac ‘n cheese, is on sale at Walgreens this week.  I clipped a coupon for that too.  For some reason (my Scottish background?) I feel LESS bad about eating (delicious) crap when I buy it on sale.

3.) More on this later, but I had a major haircut and do not feel frustrated with the change.  I feel like I have a lot less hair.

4.) Fraggle Rock is on On Demand.  Heck yeah, I’ll dance my cares away.

5.) My new book club starts soon.