There was a fad a week or so ago on Xanga about posting your turn ons and turn offs. I’ll start by saying the words “turn on and turn off” are both a turn off for me. ha. So I’m gonna call them likes and dislikes in regards to people, and some of them do not apply to romantic relationships, just people in general.

I’m really good at boring intros, FYI.

Stuff I like:

Martial arts   (it’s lame but I love dudes kicking butt. I can’t help myself!)
Kindness.   Is there anything better than a big burly man helping a little old lady cross the street or holding a tiny baby gently?? No, there’s not.
Funny things  A sense of humor is a big deal to me. If we’re not laughing together, what’s the point?
Self-control. 
A sense of adventure
Stability.  I like people who are in it for the long haul, both in friendship and in life

Stuff I don’t like:
Negative Attitudes
people who think they’re better than other people
People who think they know it all
recklessness
grudge holders
dudes in skinny jeans.  (I’m sorry if you’re a dude in skinny jeans reading my blog. Just not my fave)

Stuff I can’t decide about, maybe you can help?
Cowboys – sure sure on t.v. and in books they’re all that and a bag of chips but most of the ones I’ve known in real life are kind of alcoholic losers who didn’t even have farms. I guess they don’t really qualify as cowboys then, huh? Anyone know a good cowboy I can interview to make up my mind about?

Tattoos – on some people they look really awesome and cool. On many people, not so much. I can’t muster up enough commitment to anything to want to tattoo it on my body FOREVER. Steven thinks I should get a tattoo. We laugh about this all the time. Text conversation we have frequently: STeven: what are you doing? Me: Oh, just getting my tattoo. Steven: really?? Me: No.

facial hair – I love how a rugged 5 o’clock shadow LOOKs, but if you have to kiss that face I hate how it feels. For some reason it’s like the dilemma in Bridget Jones’s diary about which underwear to wear. The ones that hold all the fat in and make you look good and therefore more likely to get to a “Crucial moment”  but are then mortifying if you arrive at the moment VS  the cute ones that look better IN the crucial moment but are less likely to lead to that moment. That’s man facial hair. More likely to lead you TO the moment but annoying IN it.

What are your thoughts?

My job requires a lot of random things. I write grants, I do monitoring and reporting on said grants, I manage people, I deal with people in crisis, I take donations (usually stuff, like clothing household goods, etc) I pay bills, I handle crazy situations, sometimes I pick locks, sometimes I argue with angry abusers, I help people hide, and well, I could go on and on. Today’s post is dedicated to my office, where I sit to do most of the deskwork part of my job.

First up, I need good tunes to listen to.

Secondly, I need my computer (Yes, it’s sitting one one of those things and has an attached keyboard. An employee has assured me I will thank her for this getup in 15 years when I don’t have neck problems from looking down at my laptop. I’ll let you know how that goes):

Here’s the desk. I’m more than willing to share it. @Myxldove

We can’t leave out old Bessie. She’s the printer/copier/scanner and fax (I don’t use her for faxing). She was donated by HP. She calibrates herself a lot, at random times. Also, she can be a real pain in the you know what, but I love her in that way that you love things you just have to have.  I named her Bessie because that’s what my mom always names her car. And she’s like, half the size of a prius.

Also, you can’t forget my work pictures of my kids. I love it when people look at this then ask me if I have any kids.  Also, one of my favorite things on this board is the postcard I got at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company in Denver. The Forrest Gump quote on it: “Always be able to look back and say, at least I didn’t lead no humdrum life.”

What’s your workspace like?

Many a time I’ve stood in my kitchen mumbling about not being able to reach something, and many a time Steven has been overheard chuckling about my predicament. I may or may not have been quoted saying, “What the hell kind of giants built this place?”
Well, imagine for a moment, while you look at these photos from my eye level, that you’re trying to reach the folgers, the cereal, the Mac and cheese or adjust the ceiling fan.
Imagine what that’s like!

This weekend was Palm Sunday, and it was my oldest son Alex’s confirmation. What a wonderful day it was. I was not raised Lutheran so we did not experience confirmation the same way a youth does who goes through the process. I was so proud of him for completing the 2 year program of study.

Recently, I met a personal goal. It’s a goal that took me a year. Yes, it was a weight loss goal. I’m not, nor have I ever been “obese”, however, I have been smaller and more healthy. So last year, my baby was about a year and a half old, I’d had a tubal and knew I wasn’t getting pregnant again, I made the decision to lose some of the extra weight I’ve had hanging around since the first baby. That first baby had been around since 2000, just so you know. I started walking, 3 miles at a time like 3 times a week. I also quit putting sugar in my coffee. I drink a lot of coffee and when I started doing the math, (which means stuff just got serious if I’m bringing out the math) I realized I was just drinking like 12 teaspooons of sugar a day. That’s a lot for nothing.  I started watching the sugar and trying to fit in ways to be more active.

I had no time to work out. I had to do my walking at work, on my lunch. Which meant in the summer I had to bring clothes to change into to go walking because you can’t just go walk in 111 degree temps in your work getup. At least, I can’t and still be halfway professional looking the second half of the day.  If I’m being honest you can’t even do that in like, 80 degree temps. There’s sweat, people, and BO.

Anyhow, after four MONTHS of that I had no weight change. None. zip. nada. zilch. I’ll be honest, that was depressing. 3 miles in the hot sun on your lunch break is no small thing.  Re-learning to love coffee without the sugar isn’t either. I can still feel the disappointment and the adult fit coming on. I hate this. Why even do it if it doesn’t make any difference? I’ve heard people say they didn’t lose weight but they lost inches. Guess what? All my inches were still there. No pants sizes went down. This happened to me once before. I’d had a test done when we were trying to get pregnant the second time around. (ever heard of secondary infertility? Where you’ve had a baby and can’t get pregnant again? We had that. I know, it’s hard to believe that now as I sit here with 5 kids, but there’s a reason there was a 4 year gap between the first two) Anyhow, all these tests determined I had high cholesterol. At age 24. I was put on a diet and exercise regime which cause me to lose no weight, no inches, and in fact, my cholesterol stayed high. I was told I needed medication which I never took and that story has no conclusion, by the way.

So, basically I felt like I was doing that all over again last year. All that dadgum work for nothing. I almost quit. Because I like sugar in my coffee. And walking kind of sucks sometimes. So do jumping jacks. Quick, go do 50! No, don’t!  You’ll feel like you’re dying!  Anyway I didn’t quit. I kept doing it and I got over my grouchiness and said who cares, at least I’ll have some endurance with my kids at the park. That’s the one thing that did change. I got winded farther and farther into the 3 miles and eventually, even walking 3 miles didn’t wind me at all.

All this to say that after starting last spring with all that crap, about a week or two ago, I weighed myself and realized I’d lost 15 pounds from last year.  !!  I was sitting there at a weight that was 7lbs more than what I weighed at age 19. When I got married. What a huge deal for me. It totally sucks that it took a year.  I’m still irked about that. I’m also irked that losing that 15 pounds made me feel like maybe I could go 5 more. So I started tracking my calories with my fitness pal and seeing how much I eat and what my exercising is.  I lost one more pound the first week of doing that, and after following it strictly:

I’ve gained two pounds.   I can feel the adult size fit/temper tantrum coming on again.  My overemotional self wants to think that all 15 of those pounds mean zip to me now, now that I’m counting my calories working my butt off and GAINING again.  If you’re struggling with more weight loss than 15 pounds you probably want to hit me right now and honestly I probably couldn’t blame you. I’m just so frustrated with it. In the real scheme of things this is not an actual real problem. In fact, this week alone I have at least 3 other major life issue type problems going on, stressing me out to the MAX. Now that I think about it, this fixation on the 2lbs is probably because there’s nothing else I can do for those other problems and no way to help them right now so I can just be mad  about the stinking weight thing.

Great. I wrote this whole thing to come to that conclusion. If you stuck it out, you’re a better man than I am. Thanks for being my virtual therapist today. There’s no pay for that job and it’s largely boring, but I appreciate you nonetheless.

Song playing on my playlist right this minute: Deep River Woman, by Lionel Richie.   Don’t judge me.

Dudes who do dishes are the cutest. Seriously, men out there, if you’re looking to impress a woman, wash dishes for her. A lot.

In your underwear, even.

These pictures are from two different days and Isaac is wearing the same shirt. Don’t be a hater, it’s Spring Break. Wearing the same shirt is totally allowed. Sometimes when it’s not spring break I wear the same shirt all weekend. Too much info? Oh well.

Yeah, his Dad was even helping. It was like Christmas for me!

Back to the playlist on my phone, the last five artists in order were: Rod Stewart, Eric Church, Lionel Richie ,Matt Nathanson and Michael Bolton.  (does anyone really care about my playlist? Probably not. And yes, I said Michael Bolton. You know you sing along with  How Am I Supposed to Live Without You every chance you get. Don’t lie.)

I wore a dress to work today. An actual dress and I didn’t have a meeting or anything.

The last time I wore this dress, about 15 lbs ago, Thomas asked if I was having another baby. I was not. I put it in the closet for a year and today I’m testing it out again tentatively. And hoping my confidence is high enough not going to take another hit today.

It’s taking me forever to finish this post. I’ve had this window open forever. The playlist is on Rihanna now.

I made meatballs from scratch yesterday. For some reason that sentence is really hilarious to me. I’ll be having them for lunch today as well.

Last night we skyped with the two boys who are at Steven’s parents house. Tonight we’ll swap out two more and get those two back. It was fun to skype, I had never done it before.

Alex told me this morning that he had a dream he was being chased by a scorpion and that scorpion merged with our dog, poncho and became a giant yellow scorpion in our backyard so he couldn’t go out there to play.   I have no interpretation of that.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  I’ll leave you with the knowledge that the song playing as I finished was Baba O’Riley, by The Who.

He headed south on Business 71 towards Fayetteville. I didn’t know where we were headed, and I didn’t much care. I’d gotten out for the day, I had nowhere to be and no one to take care of but myself. It was hot, the windows were down. I had my feet up on the dusty dash, leaving my shoes in the floorboard of the truck. Natalie Merchant was playing on the radio.

We ended up at some hole in the wall place that he had heard of from a friend of a friend. I had no idea when he had gone there before but they seemed to know him like family. He was always taking me to places like that. Rarely did we hit a big chain anything. It was always something one of a kind.

To this day when I hear Natalie Merchant or a song that refers to summer and feet on the dashboard, I think of that day. I think of the coffee shop down on Dixon we headed to, where I had my first melting snowball. I ordered it just for the title, it turned out to be a scoop of ice cream in a mug of hot chocolate. I was intimidated by all the coffee kinds and names and had no idea what they were. He had a way of exposing me to things I’d never heard of like that, music, coffee, theories about theology and life and kharma. Each date was some kind of low-key adventure.

It wasn’t meant to work out between us. It sizzled, then it got complicated then it just faded away. We enjoyed it for what it was and we both left it changed.

It’s what I think of when I hear Natalie Merchant or a song that refers to feet on the dashboard.

I’m so sleepy this morning. I guess I’ll blame daylight savings time which doesn’t make any sense to me. Daylight savings that is, also, the blaming of it. It seems generally accepted to blame all the blahs the Monday after on it though so I will. I’ll blame everything on it, in fact. I’m very hungry, dadgum daylight savings time! My side mirror on the envoy had the turn signal part come loose this am, thanks in no small part to daylight savings.

Yesterday afternoon I finally read 11th hour by James Patterson. It was good. Now I need to finish the Alex Cross book I’m on by him but it started out with a kidnapping and I just HATE kidnapper stories so I’m having trouble getting myself to start it again because I’m afraid of the fictional events that will happen to the fictional children.

I hit random on my iphone music playlist and the first song that played was Fortunate Son by CCR.

Thomas and I drew pictures this weekend with crayons. We both drew sailboats.  Mine was midday, the boat was named SS Goodtimes. His was drawn at Sunset.

As of this morning my Amazon wish list contains 2 books and 3 pairs of shoes.

Here’s a random picture of me today. I challenge you to make a boring post with a photo of yourself.  If anyone asks you why just tell them, “Because it’s daylight savings time.”