Category: Misc

Another bizzzzzy day yesterday. Of course. Ran all over town, dropped off dinner to friends, picked up our CSA shares, Tabby screamed bloody murder through a very abberviated visit to Noodles & Co., I bought a new dress at Target (cuz I'm posh like that) and (due to long phone calls with various people) didn't get to bed 'till almost midnight. But I have a very abbreviated work day then I get to go play with Tabby. We have great plans for the evening – NOTHING. Tomorrow nothing is planned either, except date night! With my husband! Hope y'all have a great weekend.

Marisa tagged me (I have a cracky Mutt, know what lychees are and like rodents) for this meme… so here goes. Continue reading “Friday! Yay!”

I really want to tell you interesting things. I mean other than that “I'm really really freaking busy.” But I think my day was vaguely interesting, so you get to relive it with me.

• Woke up to alarm and promptly hit snooze and went back to sleep.
• Went to work. Had safety committe meeting where we talked about hot aerobics instructors (not kidding) amongst other things.
• Next 2ish hours are a blur of email, voicemail, snail mail and plain ol' talking to people.
• Headed out to birthday lunch with officemates at TGI Fridays.
• Went to jobsite where we are building a *huge* fire/rescue training facility. Got the VIP tour complete with orange vest. Wore Crocs on site … spent whole time watching for nails. Very interesting though.
• Went back to office, had hour + conference call with software vendor. Banged head against desk in frustration.
• Zoooomed out of the office and towards home, stopping by Target on my way to pick up misc. groceries.
• Raced inside and changed into workout clothes while Matt put away groceries.
• Picked up Tabby, hit the gym for cardio kick-boxing (Tabby played in nursery).
• Went home, made dinner for us and started on dinner for a coworker (who is going thru chemo) and his family to be delivered tomorrow.
• Ate dinner.
• Raced off to do my “before” assessement for bootcamp.
• Am in the “good to very good” range for everything from body fat percentage, visceral fat, hydration, etc. Yay me.
• Hit the grocery store on the way home to get more lemons because at 4 PM, 1 cup apparently looked like 1/4 cup to me.
• Came home, finished dinner for friends and baked a dessert (Matt helped, thank goodness).
• Cleaned kitchen because I'm slightly OC.
• Finally sat down.
• Wrote this incredibly fascinating post.

No. You can't have the last 2 minutes of your life back. Sorry.

• Matt's tire was slashed a couple of weeks ago. So far as I know, the perpetrators were not specifically out to get us or anything … it was a “crime spree” through our picturesque Truman Show neighborhood by some bored-nothing-to-do brats. I would smack them around if I only knew who they were. $200 later, it is fixed. My lust for punk* blood, however? Not fixed.
• Matt works for and we get our health insurance through the nation's largest non-profit HMO. Overall, I find it to be pretty good. But there is one thing I absolutely HATE about my dealings with them: getting Tabby's monthly perscription of antibiotics for her urinary reflux. There are a couple of ways to do it, but what usually ended up happening was I'd go down to the clinic, wait in a line to place the order, wait 40-50 minutes for her name to appear on the board and wait in another line to pick it up, then spend another 5 min waiting while the tech went to find me the dispenser cap and a few new syringes. $7 + an hour of my time. So I transferred Tabby's perscription to Target … where we are at least once a week. I told Matt I didn't care if it was 4x more expensive if I could just not lose that hour, I would be so very ham-dappy. Transferred it, and 15 minutes later they had it filled (dispenser cap built in, 2 syringes in the bag) and it cost me $4. And the people rejoice!
• My parents are taking everyone to Hawaii in August, which will be amazing, but means a 7 hour flight for a 17 month old. The doc has already approved a bit of Benedryl to encourage some sleepiness, but I am busily planning in flight activities for Tabby as well. I've found her a cute MP3 player and I've got some Silly Putty and plastic farm animals and crayons set aside, but I'm sure I've got more hours to fill. Any suggestions??
• I ordered some company-branded swag recently. Two wicking polo shirts for active sort of stuff. I ordered two colors one of which was orchid. I didn't look at the swatches, largely because they don't really mean much. But I clearly should have because the orchid I envisioned was in the pink family. The orchid I got, however, was in the orange family. Sherbet orange. Broncos orange. OFFENSIVE orange. Ok, really not that bad and really, I don't mind orange. But near my pasty German face? Awful. So now I'm just hoping that someone else at the company wants a wicking polo in orange … err I mean Orchid.
• Tabby just put herself to bed. Again. Waved 'buh-bye' to mama. Sheesh. I know where I'm not needed.

* Note, I use the epithet, “punk” here to indicate a juvenille delinquent and I am not supposing that kids who listen to punk music and aspire to the punk lifestyle are bad eggs. It could have just as easily been some jerk football player jock preppy type. Or hell, it could have been the little old lady who lives down the street (not likely, since I don't think she has the upper body strength).

Saturday night, as I mentioned, I met up with my moms group. Most of the moms in the group are stay-at-home moms and the subset that I met up with that night, with the exception of one (who works about 10 hours/wk), were all SAHMs. We had a decent amount of time to chat before the show and it was weird, but most of the moms seemed to think that being a working mom (especially one with varied interests and a balanced-ish life) was impossible (or the next-door neighbor to it). And while I agree that it ain't easy, it's certainly not impossible. So I've been reflecting since then … how do I get things done? Here's what I've come up with:

• firstly, I have an amazing “support system” – a term which seems inadequate to describe Matt and our family and friends. Matt is a completely hands-on dad who pulls his weight with Tabby and household chores and is incredibly supportive and respectful of my need for time to get a few things accomplished. My parents and sister and extended family are thrilled to babysit while Matt and I have a date or just come over and watch Tabby so Matt and I can garden. And, for example, when our babysitter was off for a week, everyone from our friends to Matt's brother (who's still in college) pitched in to watch her for us so we could work.
• the kind of job I have – I have a great job and a great boss where I am free (within reason) to create my own hours … I need to be there most of the work week during most of the day, and sometimes if a big project hits, I'll be at work late for a few days, but I can also take work home sometimes and pick and choose my hours somewhat (as long as I meet my 40 hours for the week) to cater to the other arenas of my life and beyond that, I am able to get a few personal things done at work … I'm not talking egregious expenditures of company time for my personal crap, but I can get a few moments to make a phone call, send an email, update a list, take a deep breath, etc. without a cute little girl climbing on my lap Continue reading “How DO I do it??”

• that's where we hiked on Sunday … worth every step, I think
• miss Tabby woke up before I left this morning and I got loads of baby kisses and some snuggles … makes your day
• finished Eat, Pray, Love … great book, very enjoyable and interesting
• my swim suits from Athleta showed up … and I actually like one of them! and it's not even the one I thought I'd end up liking
• we watched The Other Boleyn Girl last night and enjoyed it very much
• the Sims 2 has a new expansion pack coming out in late August … apartments! nevermind I haven't even touched the game in over a month … I must have it
• Tabby is talking up a storm! mimicking things we say and coming out of left field with this and that and cracking us up … she learned to say “papa” just in time for father's day
• I'm loving Cozi, a family calendar and list site … incorporates mobile text alerts and email reminders … pretty cool
• did y'all hear there's going to be another Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie??
• Super Smash Brothers is pretty fun
• tomorrow the garbage men are going to take away a ton of crap that we hauled to the curb tonight

Bah. Somehow half of my photos didn't upload to flickr yesterday and I do not have the energy to do anything about it right now.

All the hiking really caught up to me today. I could hardly drag myself out of bed and I was practically nodding off at my desk. I came home and took an hour-long nap (probably could have done longer) before I went to pick up Tabby from her sitter's. The hike must have gotten to her too since she took a 2-hour nap (practically unheard of for her).

We took the way easy way out with dinner tonight and made pigs in a blanket … using vegetarian hot dogs. I still have no idea what's in them but I'm not so worried about the answer … hehe. Fortunately, we have a pretty laid back week without many demands on our time. I'm anxious to get some time to relax and get a few things done around here. Laundry for example.

It's just been crazy busy around here. It feels like we go almost non-stop these days. Here's a sampling:

• I'm in the middle of reading Eat, Pray, Love. I've got another book to read for work, but I refuse to put down (turn off) Eat Pray Love until I'm done. Awesome book.
• Our CSA shares are finally supposed to start this week. Hope we get something good after this wait!
• Tabby is such a little person these days. She talks non-stop and we're getting more and more discernable words and phrases every day. “There it is!” is her newest. Cracks me up!
• I finally joined a nice mom's group. It's still hard for me to make events, but the organizer is letting me be a co-organizer and put some things together for weekends and evenings! We're going to the comedy club this Sat.
• The garden is doing … OK. It's sort of rallied since the hail and we even have quite a few teeny tomatoes on the vines. But my butternut squash (2 plants) are dead. It's one of my favorite veggies, so we plan to get more. My dill and chives are taking off like crazy! (more details here)
• Father's Day is this Sunday already!! I'm doing pretty well though and have gifts purchased (mostly). Just need to send off my FIL's gift. It wil probably be late because I doubt it's making it out today. I also have the meal all planed, thanks to Everyday food: Father's Day Feast AND two types of bar cookies (rocky road brownies and creamy lemon squares).
• Just ordered swimming suits from Athleta. I looked high and low but couldn't find one I liked in any store in town … that I could, y'know … TRY ON (granted, I'm probably being a bit overly picky, but my boobs have specific requirements!). So catalog it was. I hope I like one of them!!
• Tabby and I have been dancing to the goofy French Playground CD every night before bed. She loves it.
• Watched the most AWFUL (and therefore fascinating) episode of Supernanny last night!! These parents had their 14 and 17 year olds raising their little brothers (4-yo twins and a 3-yo), homeschooling themselves AND doing all of the housework. They weren't allowed to go out at night unless all their chores were done and their parents constantly criticized them. Wanted to reach through the screen several times and throttle these “adults.”

That's it for me! Happy hump-day, y'all.

Ahhh… another weekend gone. At least it was a good one. Friday I got off work a bit early and headed off to FINALLY get my hair cut. Yay. There's a salon very near my house so I just had them get me an appointment with someone there. Luckily, I really liked her and think she did a great job. It's sort of a bob, but a bit longer. Probably doing a bad job of describing it. They also did a parafin dip on my hands while I was getting my cut. That was cool too. Then I went to pick up Tabby and we got to spend the whole afternoon together. We went to lunch at Panera (I had a salad, she had a PBJ) and then we went to pick up food for dinner. As an extra fun thing, we stopped at a really neat toy shop and played with lots of cool toys and I bought her a neat CD of French music.

Then we went home and got Tabby ready for her evening out. I took her over to my parents' house where she spent the night. They went out to our favorite Italian restaurant from when I was little and played and had pancakes in the morning. I hear it was fabulous.

Meanwhile, Matt arrived home from his business trip and we had a very nice date night in. We had salmon dip with pita chips to start and grilled steaks and vegetables and roasted potatoes for dinner. For dessert we roasted marshmallows on our fire pit and made s'mores. We hung out around the fire pit for a long long time, talking and drinking wine. It was a great evening. One I'd be happy to repeat any time.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Jess
2. What is your favorite food? strawberries (today anyhow)
3. What high school did you go to?
Wheat Ridge High (the corresponding photo is of the Wheat Ridge Grange)
4. What is your favorite color? green! (the apple was the prettiest shade of green supplied)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Richard Blais (one of the guys on Top Chef)
6. Favorite drink? Sidecar (a drink made with lemon juice, brandy and contreau)
7. Dream vacation? Japan (though I only typed in Japan, when the image of the vending machines came up, I had to use it … because that is a big part of what I want to do if I were to go there … photograph vending machines)
8. Favorite dessert? chocolate peanut butter
9. What you want to be when you grow up? teacher (this is what I wanted to be when I was little)
10. What do you love most in life?
family (I loved the family of ugly dolls!)
11. One Word to describe you – silly (a silly cow? don't ask me )
12. Your Flickr name. Jesser (the photo was a trip to NYC with someone named Jesser) Continue reading “Flickr Mosaic Meme”