Not-calm.com: January 2011 Archives

Hello, and welcome to February

I've been seeing little hearts everywhere. Like in my soup at lunch today.

See the little blurry green heart of something (parsley? oregano?) in there?

And, luckily there's no photo of this one; the bird poop on the back window of my van. I have to admit that when I first saw it, I thought for a microsecond about taking a picture because it's a perfect heart shape. But then I got a little gaggy thinking about it. When Sophie saw it, she immediately said, OH LOOK! HEART SHAPED POOP! I'm going to take a photo of that heart bird poop, print it out, and make a valentine for that mean boy in my class. It will say HAPPY. VALENTINE'S. DAY.

So apparently I have been grinding my teeth at night. I made a groove in the back of my top front teeth with the front of my bottom front teeth, and I wore off the enamel on the bottom front teeth. I had that fixed today, and soon I will go back to get fitted for the super sexy, always-in-style mouthguard. (this is the part where I touch my finger to my ass and make a sizzling sound)

By Jenijen on January 31, 2011 7:27 PM | No Comments

Confetti

Really it's packing (shredded magazines), but I just want to stand on top of a building and throw it over a parade.

By Jenijen on January 29, 2011 8:16 PM | No Comments

Sophie watches movies

By Jenijen on January 28, 2011 6:55 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

I cut Willow's bangs

They were a little crooked, so we straightened them out after this. She's so stinkin cute.

By Jenijen on January 28, 2011 6:05 PM | No Comments

Good mom bad mom

Some of the things I have said and done lately:

I was on the phone with Jenny this morning, talking about work stuff, when I saw the lunches I'd made for the boys on the kitchen table. I thought that Lex had already left, and I knew that Nate had, because Lex was supposed to take his lunch to him at school. When I saw the lunches I said to Jenny, Dude, I'm going to freaking kill Alex! And Alex, who was still home, said, Why are you going to freaking kill me?
Confession bullet: neither one of us really used the word "freaking."
I bought the girls very fancy (pricey) Valentine making kits with gorgeous paper and ribbons and stuff. My kids always have to make their own Valentines, no grocery store ones allowed. They finally like it better this way. It took a long time of listening to crying about not having Rugrats Valentines, though.
I told Nate that I'd drive him fifteen miles away to a store tomorrow night after dinner so he can buy an airsoft gun. An airsoft gun that he's not allowed to keep at my house, because I have issues with those things. But I'm taking him because he's going away for the weekend and NEEDS to have it. He has to use his own money, though.
I've accepted the fact that this is my twelve year old son's favorite song.
I wrote a note for Sophie to walk instead of run in PE today, even though I know she's probably capable.
I suggested that Soph's science fair project this year be "Will Sugar Make Kids Run Faster?" Willow came up with the title: "Sugar Rush?"

YOU GUYS! STOP calling it a Leprechaun Toilet. It makes me gag every time I pour myself a glass of water!
I bought a twelve pack of organic chocolate milk juiceboxes for the kids' lunches and told them not to get used that sort of thing, because it hardly ever goes on sale.
I bought four tickets to go see Social Distortion in February. Me, Scuba, Lex, and Nate. This weekend, I'll pick up the new disc for my boys. All three of them.

It costs way more to go see a punk band than it did back in the day. Just sayin.

By Jenijen on January 25, 2011 9:00 AM | 6 Comments

To the pharmacy ladies:

Thanks for your concern, but I don't think I need for you to look at the box you're about to hand me, cringe and then tell me how awful my medication is. See, you are filling the prescription, and I am using the medicine, so I'm totally one step ahead of you there. And then, when I say, in a fauxjovial manner, It sure does beat being sick! That's your cue to find a segue to another topic, not an invitation for you to start calling me a "poor thing" even though I'm twice your age. And then, that Hmmmm you heard from me? Just so we're clear here: Not me prompting you to proceed to tell me about how sorry you feel for all those poor patients (here I am certain she clucked her tongue) who have to take so many medicines. Now granted I am down drastically from the sixteen pills per day and four-hour-long IV infusions every month I was dealing with last year, but still. Just get my damn medicine and shut the hell up. Ahem. Please.

But if I thought my pharmacy pickup exchange was painful, at least I wasn't the woman next to me. The quite old, quite frail woman holding a mask over her face in hopes of not catching something from all the sick folk in line. (Funny though, because when she walked up to the window the first thing she did was put both her hands on the hands of the pharmacy worker and I was all, All that hard work of wearing and holding the mask, BAM! totally wasted. I sorta wanted to sidle up to her with some hand sanitizer, but I was busy trying to make my pharmacy lady have a little less pity for me.)

The woman, the older frail one, she got up to her pharmacy lady, and her pharmacy lady was all, Hi! How's your husband? And then the woman got to explain that he'd died recently. And, look, I know it's uncomfortable to be in the position the pharmacy lady was in, but it wasn't ten seconds before I heard her say to the woman, Well, but, he *was* suffering.

I've probably said that to someone myself before, and if I did, I am so sorry for it. What is with this weird compulsion people have to try and make the bereaved feel better? The woman lost her husband. And no she doesn't want him suffering, but she does want him back, whole and well and sitting across the breakfast table from her, and you're going to put her in the position where she has to imply that it's such a great thing that he's dead? What a complete and total bummer that is.

Anyway. To sum up: My pharmacy lady -- Cut the medicine chitchat, you healthy betch. Other pharmacy lady -- How about a simple, I'm so sorry, you must miss him terribly. He was such a kind man and we always enjoyed seeing him here.

There now. That wasn't so difficult, was it?

By Jenijen on January 20, 2011 10:52 PM | 3 Comments

If they were all like this, I could totally go for a month of Sundays

By 9 this morning we were in the car, Scuba at the wheel, headed to the skate park. Soph was skiing with her bff today while we did this:

and this:

We were home in time for lunch at 12:30, and then? Then Scuba and I took a three hour nap.

THREE HOURS

I think I've not done that since I was a baby, probably. Feels like it, anyway.

I even went to yoga tonight and came home at 7:15 to find Scuba and the kids (which was really just Scuba) cooking. We had a lovely supper and then sat down to watch My Bodyguard.

Soph came home from the snow with a present for me (really incredible olive oil that she bought with the spending money I'd given her) and lots of funny stories. Tonight we are all the best kind of worn out tired. I love these days.

By Jenijen on January 16, 2011 10:46 PM | 4 Comments

Okay so I lied

Here's a photo with our tree in it:

By Jenijen on January 6, 2011 1:01 PM | No Comments

Tastes like bad

This is the only photo I took of our beautiful Christmas tree this year, and I took it this morning with my iPhone when I was headed to work:

I didn't take many photos at all over the holidays because I was either eating or my hands had food on them and I didn't want to mess up my camera. I'm not even joking. Scuba and I both overdid it and so we are now all committed to getting back in shape so we can fit into our wetsuits again and get in the water this spring and summer. (He probably still fits into his wetsuit, but I know better than to even try mine.) And so of course yesterday was our first day of being good and not drinking beer and laying off the cheese and butter and chocolate. At lunchtime I sent him this text: Someone in the office has fast food fries that smell REAL good and I just have an apple & an orange. Wah wah wah. Miss you xo

He replied: I had progresso chix and rice. 180 calories

And so, after work on my way home and before I stopped by my mom's, I went to Trader Joe's and got chicken and spinach and a can of plum tomatoes and thought I'd make my own chicken and quinoa soup in the crockpot so that I, too, could have a healthy lunch that wasn't just fruit. Cause let me tell you, I was starving all day yesterday and I didn't even say in the text that I also had two bananas and a pear (and a beer with supper when I got home - whoops).

At some point in this story I should mention that I didn't get any sleep Sunday night. On my last day of being bad, I had a couple of Dr. Peppers at lunchtime and that kept me up till about three in the morning, and then I get up for work at about five.

Ok, so I finished at the grocery store and then I went to my mom's to pick up some of the things that she had sent home for me from my grandmother's house. One was a little white wicker rocking chair that Tooty wanted the girls to have, and they just love it. There are at least three boxes nearly as big as my bed full of my great-granny's Fostoria. I didn't bring those home yet, because I'll need Scuba's help to get them out of the van. The other thing I'd asked for from my grandmother's house was my Poppa's cowboy boots. I put them by my fireplace:

After I got everything put away and finished some work stuff, I decided to make the soup.

I was really, really tired and had the beginning of a migraine, so I ended up just dumping two frozen chicken breasts, a box of chicken stock, a big can of plum tomatoes, a scoop of quinoa, and a big bag of spinach into the crockpot. It was so full it nearly spilled over. Then I turned it on high and went to bed, thinking I'd get up when the kids came home and turn it off or down or something. I wasn't really thinking, honestly, because why else would I have put the spinach in at the beginning like that, duh?

When the kids got home, Lex came in and gave me a kiss and I asked him to unload the dishwasher and turn the crockpot to low, thinking I'd get up and turn it off in a bit. Instead, I woke up at five this morning to the smell of really well cooked chicken soup, and not in that Yummy! way.

I went to the kitchen to see what was what. It wasn't looking too terribly awful, boiling away there on the counter, so I decided that I'd shred the chicken and then let the whole thing cool a little so I could see if it was edible enough to compete with Scuba's 180 calorie lunch. I'm right handed, but there I was with a rubber spatula in my right hand, trying to shred the chicken by using the fork in my left hand to, what? I don't know -- press it against the spatula? After cooking all night, the chicken shredded up all nice and fine, but of course I ended up doing a total Mary Katherine Gallagher move and flinging a spatter of it onto my hand and face. And holy crap did that burn. But, you know, I like to keep my eye on the prize, so I kept at it, and then I flung more of the boiling soup onto myself, only this time it went all down my chest and onto my other hand, which burned even more because there were clumps of spinach stuck to me.

Then I ladled it all into a bowl and shredded the chicken and added some salt and tasted it. It was bad, but by this point I was committed to not throwing it out. Is there a moral to this story? Probably not. But I was reminded that I'm only a good cook when I have a good recipe. Also it's hard to wash your hair in the shower when you are trying to keep hot water off your stinging hands, but it can be done, and if you are working on getting back into shape, you can even count that as exercise because it involves more than enough twisting.

By Jenijen on January 4, 2011 8:21 PM | 2 Comments

January 2011 Archives