Clothes Hider

Col is a little particular about Addie's clothes. When we first found out we were going to have a girl, I went shopping on my lunch break and bought some baby girl outfits. Only one passed his stringent standards, and the rest were rejected and returned.

Yesterday, I was going through Addie's clothes and packing away all the 0-6 month clothes in our newly created attic. As I was going through her drawer of clothes she doesn't fit into yet, to my surprise, I found about 15 outfits that had been hidden away in the drawer and never worn. He insists it wasn't intentional, but I know better. The following are some examples of things he would've hidden if given the chance:

Because it's from Walmart, which he has boycotted.

Because it has cats on it.

Because there are cats on it, and because it's ugly.

Because it has Pooh on it.

Because it has ruffles.

Because it has bunnies.

Because it's too boyish.

Saving the world, one octopus at a time.

We came upon this octopus last summer on the beach in Rocky Point, Mexico. My favorite line is Col yelling "Take it out as far as you can and then chuck it!"

You'll notice that immediately after we saved its life, it inked us.

Bowling without the smelly shoes.

A friend at work brought in their Wii today and four of us bowled a game during our lunch break. It was great fun. We played a little tennis as well and I was wishing we had more time to try all the sports. I'm not usually big on video games, but this was really fun. I can see how it would improve your form at these sports. It's no match for actual excercise, though, but it beats sitting around eating Ding Dongs.

The power of Ding Dongs.

I used to eat a Ding Dong almost every day after school. Sometimes I'd nuke it, and eat it all warm and melty. I don't think I've eaten one since I moved out at age 18. In fact, I didn't even know they still make them.

Then today, out of the blue, a box was brought in along with all the other goodies for the Friday Morning Breakfast. Evidently Ding Dongs count as pastries, because I could not resist their seductive power of deliciousness.

Another very short movie review.

Hated it.

The smelly ones always linger longest.

This was a huge problem when I was pregnant. Involuntarily, I would gag right in the face of anyone who smelled strongly. Now it's just a mild annoyance. Whether it be a courier, a mail carrier, delivery persons, or that random person who stops in to ask where they can find a restroom - if they don't smell, they're out in a flash. On the other hand, those that smell strongly of an array of odors including smoke, cologne, various body odors, or cloves (yes, cloves) - these always linger just a little while longer.

When it's really bad, while holding my breath I sign my name more quickly to hasten their exit. Inevitably, this makes my signature less legible and they stand even longer trying to decipher it and type it into their keypad. At least my current last name is a common one. I always had to repeat and then spell out my maiden name. And then listen to a Growing Pains joke.

Funnier than ninjas.

Ninjas hate George Clooney.

If you can look past (or fast forward) the intro that I promise you won't want to listen to more than once, these are pretty funny.







There is, of course, more where that came from.

HAPPY belated NEW YEAR!

Happy Birthday, Blog.

Today, Jan. 23, marks one year for this little blog o' mine.

Expecting her to fall out of her chair any second.

Condensation Condescension

Today in the AZ Republic, the cover story is yesterday's snow here in Phoenix. Their headline is "Snow flurries wow valley," painting an image of thousands of Arizonans staring up at the sky with a look of amazement as a few snowflakes fall to the ground. Having grown up in Idaho, attending school in Utah, and living awhile in Montreal, I'm still used to snowy winters. I'm more amazed by 70 degree sunshine in January than I am by a winter snowfall. However, I've lived here long enough to know that it doesn't snow often, and we have a right to be excited when it does. That doesn't mean that we do not know what snow is, or that we think the temperature has to be freezing in order for snow to fall. The following was included in that "the valley is wowed" article. You may, like I did, wonder who the "Many people" they refer to are.

"Many people wondered how snow could fall through air with 40- and 50-degree temperatures in the Valley, well above freezing. National Weather Service meteorologists said Sunday that moisture particles were being lifted higher in the atmosphere, where it is very cold."Today, what happened was, there was a little bit of clearing in the afternoon, instability, small thunderstorms formed south of Prescott and near Cave Creek and Carefree, moved south and there was a down rush of wind and particles," meteorologist Hector Vásquez said. He explained that all moisture in clouds starts off in snowflake form, but because the moisture was so high up in the atmosphere, it stayed colder for longer and didn't melt immediately, allowing it to remain as snow at non-freezing temperatures. It would be the same as watching an ice cube melt slowly rather than immediately on a warm surface, meteorologist Austin Jamison said."

Thank you for that ice melting metaphor, because without that I don't think I would get it.

I look like I drive a minivan.

Last night Col filmed a basketball game at the high school where he's doing his student teaching. Addie and I joined him for the first half of the game until it became too loud and both of our heads were about to explode. I cupped my hands over her ears, but as there was no one to cup their hands over my ears, we made our exit. (The refs threw half the students out of the game by the fourth quarter - it was THAT loud).

It wasn't too cold out, but it was windy, so I gratefully accepted when a security guard offered us a ride on his golf cart. He was very nice and told me about his niece who is Adeline's age. I said I could jump off and walk once we hit the parking lot, but he said it was no trouble to take us to our car.

He headed down the row where we'd parked and after a second, I said "That one there" and pointed to our car. He didn't see where I'd pointed, so he took his best guess and said "The minivan?"

The most fattening salad on the planet.

Because I came in an hour late, I am skipping my lunch break today. A friend here at work offered to pick me up something to eat while she was out on the town. She asked if I had a suggestion of where she could go and I said "Anywhere healthy." She looked at me a minute and then said, "Are you ok with Taco Bell?" As some of you may know, I am not ok with Taco Bell.

Lacking options, I pulled up their website to check out their salads. You will now receive a glimpse of how un-health conscious I am, when I admit that I had no idea that most restaurants post nutritional information for their entire menu.

While perusing this wealth of statistics, imagine my surprise when I found out that taco bell salads contain more fat than most things on their menu. This is the nutrition summary for Taco Bell's Fiesta Taco Salad. Note the astounding 46 grams of fat and 860 calories. The chicken gordita supreme, which sounds like it should be much worse for you only has 12 fat grams and 290 calories.

So, in conclusion, bring on the gorditas!

My Achilles' Heel

I, like every person in the world at this time of year, have set a goal to eat healthy. For the most part, it hasn't been too hard. This may, however, be facilitated by the fact that unlike many others, I didn't set the goal on the first of January. I set it yesterday, and so far I have been doing swimmingly.

Then this morning someone brought in pastries. Not just any pastries. Pastries from La Madeleine bakery. Whenever this happens, there are always several left over, and they sit in the break room all day and wait like evil little temptresses. Pastries, in case you didn't know, are female. In the past, especially while I was pregnant and craved pastries 16 hours per day, I deceived myself into thinking pastries aren't that bad for me. It's just bread, right?

Then one day I saw a special on PBS about bakers. It showed the baker making pastry dough from scratch. Imaging my surprise when he put the hugest glob of butter I have ever seen into the bowl. In case you didn't know, pastries are about 80% butter. Kind of ruined it for me.

So this morning, I am proud to say, that for the first time in my life I passed on a pastry. All day long I avoided them and now all the good ones are gone, so I think I'm in the clear. Now all I have to do is keep myself from going home and sucking on a cube of butter. Baby steps.

A little bit of a movie review.

We watched the movie Everything is Illuminated the other day. I highly recommend it.

A good video for a Monday morning.

Still trying to figure it out...

jerome murat
Uploaded by segalier

In case you're wondering if the announcer explains how he does it, he doesn't. Here's the translation of what he says:

“…four legs or two arms, but he has chosen to have two heads. Here is a live demonstration. He is Jerome Murat, The Head With the Mirage" (could also be translated "The Optical Illusion Head".)

Then afterward he says:

“I don’t know exactly how he does it, but he now has his head on his shoulders, and in any case, that way he won’t lose it. It’s truly an absolutely magnificent performance. Jerome Murat!”

Working in Paradise, Living in Scottsdale.

Here at work, our office is right on the border of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. It used to be a Scottsdale address, and now it's a Paradise Valley address, though nearly 98% of our mail still lists the city as Scottsdale and it gets to us just fine.

I didn't think it mattered at all until a few weeks ago when our mail started coming really late, at close to 5 p.m. This was throwing everything off, and making it impossible to deposit checks that came in the mail until the next day.

A few days later it was back to normal, and even coming earlier. I asked our mail carrier about it and she gave me the skinny. Apparently the mayor of Paradise Valley knows someone who knows someone who pulled some strings and now PV gets their mail earlier and Scottsdale gets it later. I guess there are a few advantages to living in Paradise.

Maybe I'll start having my personal mail delivered here, since our mail at home now comes at around 10 p.m.

Another reason to dislike cats.

Early this morning, around 5 a.m., I heard the baby crying. I went to check on her, and she was sound asleep. I went back to bed and heard her crying again. Then I realized the sound was coming from outside the window. Someone had put a baby outside our window!

Once I was awake enough to think clearly, it became apparent that it was a cat. A few minutes later it was two cats. One cat that sounded like a baby, and another cat that sounded like a stray cat.

The obvious thing to do was to wake up Col, which I did for a plethora of reasons. First, it was very important that he hear the cat that sounded exactly like a baby crying. Otherwise, when I told him about it the next morning he wouldn't have believed me, just like when the neighbor's dog bit me and he didn't believe me until I showed him the puncture wound in my leg. Also, it was, of course, his duty to get dressed and go outside in the cold to get rid of the cats.

He came in a few minutes later and we listened to the cats that were still whining, but now from farther away.

Then the baby started crying.


If you feel sorry for the cats, click here.

If you feel sorry for us, click here.

I would totally watch this movie.

My new lotion.

I've been using some stuff called De-Solv-It today. It's kind of like Goo Gone, but doesn't smell as bad and doesn't disappear the minute you bought it from Target. (Not because you used it, but because someone stole it out of your shopping cart.) A co-worker who had also been using it mentioned that it was drying out her hands and she wondered what was in it. I looked at my hands, and they looked like they were coated with paint thinner.

Worried that I had subjected my hands to worse treatment than the usual neglect of never lotioning them, I checked to see what this De-Solv-It was made of. And now I will give you the link, because earlier it would've spoiled the surprise, which is that this stuff is made out of aloe vera and lanolin and is "safe, 100% organic, biodegradable and contains no harsh chemicals".

Imagine my surprise when I found out it's better for my skin than the lotion I never use. Thanks, dtep.

Money can't buy me basic math skills.

Tara Reid counted down from 100 on New Year's Eve... kind of. She misses 29 and then it's all downhill from there.

"20, 9, 8, 5, 14, 13, 12, 11... "

A bone to pick.

The Pitchfork staff has selected their Top 100 Tracks of 2006. A list like this makes me realize how little I follow the latest bands, as I haven't heard of about 75% of them. I've decided to listen to each track, which they've made very easy by providing the mp3 following their blurb about each song. I've already found quite a few that I like and some that make me think something along the lines of "Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous? Really?"

Their number 1 pick reminded me of a conversation on the way home from a Spire music concert. Those of you who were there will know exactly what I'm talking about. I do like their definition of what it takes to be the King of Pop:

"Timberlake is the new King of Pop, and just like the old King, he’s not scared to sing like a girl..."

I'm not saying it's the worst song ever, but the VERY best of all of 2006? Really?

I need a nap.

There was a time when I could stay up until 4 a.m. and it was no big deal - mainly because I could sleep until noon the next day. Those days are gone. Adeline was wide awake it's morning at 7 a.m., giving me a total of 3 hours of sleep. I then chose a New Year's Day matinee over a nap.

The Holiday - 1

I brought a pillow and blanket to work today so I can sleep in my car during my lunch break.