it’s monday

the weekend was good.  we had a great time at the cooking class on friday night.  the chef was really handsome, and since i’m not supposed to notice that, he was a good teacher too.  the desert we made was so delicious!!  i can’t wait to make it again.
and saturday we went to the st. pats festival.  it was a nice day, a little chilly in the shade, but we had a good time.  i’ve got a chip on my shoulder from that day, but i guess i’ll complain about that tomorrow.  today, i tackle the meme.

7 random things about me (i’ll try not to overlap with my 101)

1. i get really excited about things. not just certain things, but anything that i’m looking forward to or that makes me happy.  maybe it’s because i’m so black and white about things so i live in extremes, but when i get excited i get REALLY SUPER EXCITED.  to the point of jumping around and being impatient.  probably being obnoxious at times but sometimes i just can’t wait. 
2. i have strict seasonal attire rules.  i was brought up under them and i still stick to them.  i was appalled when i moved here to see that people use Easter as the first time to begin wearing white and stop wearing hose.  i don’t care what anyone says, it’s memorial day.  though i will allow people to get away without hose if it’s over 70 degrees, i will not look at them with disgust.  but no matter how many articles come out saying “you can wear white anytime now” i won’t.  and i don’t agree.  just because people want to change “the rules” doesn’t make them right.  i don’t wear open toes with tights, i don’t wear sandals in the winter (even when it’s 75 degrees) and you’ll never catch me in velvet after winter is over either. 
3. i spent most of my life thinking that mom-mom died in the pink wingback in the living room.  as a child i has issues with that chair and avoided it at all costs because i just thought it was creepy.  it wasn’t until a couple of years ago, over thanksgiving dinner, that my mom came out and told me that she’d really died in my bed (since i’d given up my room when she came to stay with us, she bought a new bedroom suite for me to have once she was gone, this is what i refer to as my bed).  my mom thinks it’s funny, i do not.
4. i’m a tourist.  everywhere.  it doesn’t matter if it’s where i grew up, where i’ve lived for the past 5+years or where i’m visiting for a few days.  i love to do the tourist stuff.  it’s partially about learning new things.  it’s partially about knowing stuff about various areas.  but mostly i think it’s about being nosey.  i like to know everything that’s going on.  i especially love tours that go through houses.  i love seeing the inside of other people’s places.  i live in a historic area and definitely look in the windows of the enormous houses as i run by at night. (i don’t run that often)
5. i prefer cake to icing.  sometimes i just want a sweet snack.  this is when i bake up some cake or cupcakes.  i usually only icen the ones i’m going to take to work.   i like to eat mine as just cake.  even when i have cupcakes or cake from someone else, i tend to scrape off most of the icing.  but yet i’ll sit down with a jar of icing and go to town.  for some reason i’m not a big fan of the two together.
6. i crush quite easily.  i’ve probably had hundreds of crushes in my life so far.  if i find a boy attractive, and he’s subsequently nice to me, i have an instant crush.  they’re not necessarily anything i want to go further, i just have a crush on them.  i have crushes at my job, i’ve had them at every job.  most of them have been on older, married men.  when i go back and read my high school diary/journal i have a new crush every semester.  i also have tons of hollywood crushes.  typically on older, balding, men.  bruce willis is a crowd favorite, yes.  but i also really like ed harris.  and my number one favorite celebrity crush ever? bing crosby.  i don’t know why, but there’s something about that man that makes me grin from ear to ear.
7. i talk alot.  A LOT.  i’ve always been this way.  i remember being voted most talkative in our middle school yearbook, but because my mom put it together i wasn’t allowed to get it.  this has also transferred to my writing.  i guess it’s because i write as i speak.  i’ve never been one to send a brief email.  and in the blogging world i’ve realized that i can’t leave a short comment either.  for some reason i’ve always got alot to say.  no matter what.    

  

~ today i learned… that peeling asparagus takes off some of the bitterness (so for all of us who read this and said, “why would you peel it?”, well now we know… but you can still use a knife or normal peeler) ~

are you sheetin’ me?!

i just have to vent right now.  i was trying to do some online shopping, hoping that my minor rage would subside, but no luck. 

so i’m at M’s.  when i spend the weekends here i bring my laundry (it’s so much cheaper than the ‘mat).  so this week i brought a bunch of whites to bleach.  i recently stumbled across a great deal on some really great sheets.  i’m a linens snob and i don’t buy sheets or towels that i wouldn’t want to wrap myself in day and night.  so i bought this new set in white.  i never buy white sheets or towels but recently decided to so that i can just bleach the crap (not literally) out of them.  so anyway, M decided to strip his bed and throw his white sheets in at the same time.  that’s cool.  i mean it’s his w/d and all so i didn’t think anything of it.  until they were dry.  when we pulled them out to begin folding we came across the how-will-we-tell-these-apart issue.  so we looked at the tags, they both pretty much said “cotton”, so that didn’t help.  then we compared the pillowcase size, that didn’t help.  but there was a distinct difference in the texture of the sheets. 

it’ll probably help if i go back a step to explain how much i dislike M’s sheets.  he always has white sheets, which i can’t stand.  and they’re not the softest, most comfortable sheets in the world, and mine always are.  so he felt both of the sheets and decided that the softer ones were his.  i began posing questions to him to make him realize that he was wrong, to no avail.  so the whole time i knew that the soft ones were mine.  the new purchase that i was so proud of.  yet he decided that i was wrong and took my set.  he seriously dressed his bed in my sheets and insists they’re his.  maybe i’m being a teapot but i’m really ticked.  of course i can’t explain to him that the other sheets are his because his blow.  he doesn’t agree.  but i would never buy the set of sheets he’s now left me with.  mine also had a nice thick folded edge.  his have the sad skinny kind. 

i’m so mad right now.  i’m not going to use this crappy set of sheets so i’m just going to leave them here.  but i’m just so mad.  i have no way to prove that he’s wrong so i don’t have much of a leg to stand on once we get past the “your sheets feel like recycled t.p. and i would never pay real paper money for that shit!” conversation.  and he always thinks i’m wrong anyway so it doesn’t matter when i say “i just know!”.  but i pay such fine attention to the little details, like the size of the edge, and he doesn’t.  yet he still doesn’t believe me. 

he’s upstairs ironing now and i’m down here pouting with my laptop and wedding tv on in the background.  if he knows what’s good for him he’ll stay up there a while.

service, please

* after magda’s post the other day, i decided to hit publish on this one *

M went to Easter service with me.  it was a great.  or at least, it was good.  okay, i guess it was just alright.  typically my friend MM goes with me on holidays.  we’re not the same religion, but he wants to go to a service so he always opts to go with me.  this year he declined.  i don’t know why.  i didn’t ask.  i was a little hurt but not a big deal.  so i asked M.  i’ve complained to M on many occasions about going to church by myself.  and how sad it makes me to be there alone.  my church seems to be made up entirely of families and newlyweds.  there’s always an abundance of pregnant chics and newborns.  i don’t know how, but it’s just like that.  so i tend to look around and get very teary-eyed during sermons.  so anyway, i was hesitant to ask M but i did.  he declined at first.  he said he’d pass.  to his credit, he asked me if i really wanted him to go, because if i said yes then he said he would.  i told him the truth, that i would like for him to go but didn’t want him to if he really didn’t want to.  he passed again.  that’s when the thoughts started to creep in.  what if he wasn’t going because it was my church?  that he’d rather not go to church at all than go to mine?  you see M is catholic.  i am not.  i’m christian, but not catholic.  and even if he’d countered with an invite to a catholic church (which wouldn’t happen because he doesn’t really go) i would have declined.  i like taking communion and don’t like that i’m not invited to in catholic church.  so i asked M, “is it because you don’t want to go to church, or is it because it’s not a catholic church?”  as i suspected he just didn’t want to go to church.  but then he said he’d go.  i didn’t try to talk him into it.  but he eventually agreed.  and i wasn’t going to turn it down.  while he didn’t do anything in particular during the service i felt it was obvious he didn’t want to be there.  so i began to feel bad for dragging him there.  he didn’t recite a word.  didn’t sing a note (i don’t either, but i silently mouth them… i don’t need to subject anyone to that). and he didn’t take communion.  i didn’t expect him to do any of these things, but i still felt it was obvious he didn’t want to be there.

but it really made me think… is the kind of wedding service you want to have something you should discuss before even getting engaged?  because what if we got all the way to planning a wedding and he refused to get married in my church?  that would be a huge problem.  because i’m either getting married in my church or by a justice of the peace.  i can guarantee you that.  i guess the bigger problem would be if he insisted on being married in a catholic church.  i wouldn’t be able to take my vows in a catholic service because i don’t agree with all of them.  and i definitely couldn’t vow to raise my children under the catholic church.  i wouldn’t be able to stand there and say i could, knowing full well i wouldn’t.  i also wouldn’t want to subject my dear guests to that lengthy catholic service, the weddings at my church are about 20 minutes.  but i’m not sure why i’m worrying about this.  M is not a devout catholic.  then again, i guess he’s just not a strict catholic.  i grew up in a primarily roman catholic area so i know that many go one of two directions, either they lapse or they’re strictly devout.  i’m used to my brother in law who is a die-hard catholic.  when he and my sister got married there was no other option.  and even though he swore to my sister that the kids would have an option when they got older, we all knew that they would have to be brought up catholic.  he wouldn’t have it any other way.  i have nothing wrong with this.  it’s just different.  different from what i know and what i want.  but seriously, when is the correct time to discuss this?  after you get engaged, when you start talking about the service?  or should it be brought up before-hand, like when you’re figuring out if you both want kids?

for me, i can’t imagine bringing this up with M any time because i don’t want him to feel like i’m pushing the marriage issue anymore.  but in general, what do you guys think?  is this one of those important issues that should be brought up when discussing the possibility of marriage and what you both want in the future?

  

  

~ today i learned… the term “pump” for women’s shoes is taken from the reference to low shoes without any fasteners that men wore in the early 19th century, it was later brought back to refer to similarly styled women’s shoes in the 20th ~

shoe girls

anyone who’s going to buy spring shoes this week… here’s a coupon for DSW

hopefully you’re a member and already got this to get your 30% off, if not you can still get 20% off

just print this out and bring it with you… one condition - you post a picture of the shoes you buy with it : )

i’m not kosher

i thought i was doing something good for lunch yesterday

vegetables, dairy, meat… sounds perfect, right?  well it probably would have been if my vehicle for this fabulous arrangement wasn’t cheese fries with bacon.  make no mistake, i know it’s greasy and terrible for you.  but it’s soodelicious.  and my stomach is no stranger to loaded fries.  when i was bartending we would go out every night after our shifts, shit-face-loaded, and head for the diner down the street to order huge plates of cheese fries with gravy.  oh man, these are so amazing.  i’m drooling just thinking about them.  even once i moved here, and couldn’t find them anywhere, i would buy the little packets of gravy and bags of fries and cheese and cook ‘em up late night when i would stumble home drunk.  i also turned all of my drinking buddies onto this late night treat.  but since you can’t find many places that make both fries andgravy anymore i have come to really appreciate the cheese fries with bacon.  yumalicious!  i couldn’t imagine putting any better tasting things together.  so while my body is all too familiar with this “meal” it didn’t take to it too kindly yesterday.  i guess once the bacon hit my stomach it found all the ham and decided to have a no-holds-barred party.  (seriously, i’m going to be eating ham until i die.  or i may die of eating ham.  the moral of this story is that if there are only two of you, and you’re bad at throwing things out, do notmake a 15lb. ham for easter.  i kid you not.  too much ham!)   i guess certain other things i’d eaten were not invited to this party so they were forced to leave.  immediately.  after i rushed myself into the bathroom i realized that maybe that wasn’t the best meal for the day.  the upside is that i finally had a chance to read my new In Style that just arrived. 

i was finally released from the lav and continued about my normal day of “working” from home. **sidenote: lately my definite of working has been focused on finding, and applying for, jobs up the eastern seaboard.  i’ve sent out a few more resumes and started thinking of more places to look at directly than i had before.  i actually get very excited each time i think of a company, even if they don’t have any applicable positions once i open their site. ** when M came over for dinner i decided to pass.  he set out to have a decent meal and i made my own.  i’d thought about having soup.  soup sounded good.  but i’m impatient.  so while i was standing there staring into the cupboards i saw the banana in my fruit bowl that had gone past my ideal point of just yellow with slight hints of green not too soft or brown.  this one was now polka dots.  so i decided i’d finish up that chocolate ice cream too and just make these kids into a milkshake.  i sandwiched the choco’nana milkshake with a bag of bear naked and a bowl of almonds.  i know this was a sorry excuse for a meal, but it was delicious.

this is what happens.  i get depressed.  and if i’m not out shopping i’m home.  watching bad tv and eating poorly.  if eating at all.  who am i kidding, i watch bad tv every day.  i just lose my appetite when i’m this stressed out.  it’s completely unhealthy, but i can’t help it too much.  luckily whenever i lose weight i gain it back the day i start eating like a healthy person again.  my body is crazy like that.

so that’s it.  i like pork products, but not nearly as much as the amount of ham in my fridge and freezer would lead you to believe.

  

  

~ today i learned… that if you have lots of extra weight around the belly in your 40s+ then you’re more likely to suffer from dementia ~

i say we switch the ‘n’ and the ‘d’ and remove the second ‘e’

i don’t have too much to say again today.  nothing has really changed.  i’m still a mess.

luckily i have so many wonderful people  to talk to and just get things out.  i thrive on this.  if i don’t have anyone to run things by i’ll talk to myself about them.  this often just leads me in circles as i never give myself good advice.  i just give myself more questions.

i did get off the exit for M’s on my way home from work yesterday.   this is not a good sign for him.  i used to just pop over unannounced all the time to do fun things and bring some love.  but now when i do it it’s a pretty good sign that i’m about to cry.  alot.  poor M.  (kinda’)

i also have a bump inmy ear.  i felt it a few days ago when i jammed a q-tip in there.  and then it hurt when i bumped it with my phone.  and it even hurt when i was taking a dress off and it brushed by it.  so now i can’t sleep in my right side unless i prop my head up on my hand so my ear doesn’t have to press against the pillow.  i’ve had this before.  i have no idea what it is, what causes it, or what helps it.  but it slowly goes away.  it’s just super painful in the meantime.

i feel like kramer with the new layout.  wiiiiide laaaanes (making hand gestures of moving a steering wheel on large a zigzag pattern)

my apt. is a wreck.  i started pulling out spring stuff the other day, but didn’t really finish up.  mostly because i got stuck in the summer stuff and deciding what i really should pull out and what should stay put away.  plus i should have taken the trash out on monday.  instead i just sat around like the lazy slug i’ve been lately.  now it stinks in here.  and i really should take it out today but the problem is i’m still super lazy.

normally i would really be looking forward to all the stuff that’s coming up.  we have M’s cooking class on friday (the one i got him for his birthday).  we have the good st. pat’s festival this weekend (don’t ask… this place is so weird about how/when they chose to celebrate holidays).  we’ve also got a road race i’m having people over for (since it runs by my place 2x) and i really love hosting and then our DC weekend is right around the corner.  i should be very excited.  but as i said yesterday, i’m blah.

  

  

~ today i learned… A stick of juicy fruit has only 10 calories, about the same as one bite of wheat bread (again, thanks to miss Penelope -you’re making this easy : )