Pleasantly Surprised

...by what a great weekend we ended up having. The effects of our big winnings Thursday must have helped carry over into the weekend.

Friday night the Symphony was just amazing. The 9th Symphony is about 70 minutes long, and the choir and soloists don't come in until the last part. (sorry I can't remember the term for the 4 "parts") The whole thing was great, but when the choir stood and started to sing I got chills and goosebumps up my arms. It was so loud and so clear. And just such amazing music. Really proud that our dinky little town has the large city sounding Symphony. The hall is beautiful as well. Lots of gilded chandeliers, gilded woodwork, burgundy draped walls, frayed burgundy seats. An interesting point of the night was inadvertently getting the people behind us to leave. During the opening piece by Brahms, I looked over and D looked really irritated. He mouthed the people behind were ruining it - talking and giggling. I looked up and it was a family with three teenage/pre-girls. A few minutes later the girls really started to laugh outloud, but so did the parents. I turned around and glaringly harshly whispered "hey!" working the eyebrows with a frustrated look. While D mouthed "please be quiet". The mother was still smiling at me, like she didn't get that I was ticked until i continued to glare at her. She finally got it. They left at intermission. Which was before the Beethoven part of the evening even started. O darn.

Saturday was warm and blue skies. Winter has just been too strange here. D spent all day outside. I did chores, dropped off the recycling, and made a huge dinner. Which to us means more than one dish. We had Samosas for appetizers. We ate these downstairs while we played darts. We never do stuff down there as it's not finished, so this felt weird and nice. Like we were vacationing in our own home. Then we had Chicken Biriyani with whole-wheat flax seed Naan. All made with my own 2 hands. It was yummy. I love to cook,but I really love it when it turns out tasty as well. Then after dinner we watched " Layer Cake". It was entertaining. We had to stop it twice to go over what was actually going on. And at one point they did subtitles when a serbian drug-lord was talking. D said 'I wish they'd subtitle the whole movie, friggin English talk with marbles in their mouth". And this from someone who's used to it.

Sunday I went to Pittsburgh for N's littlest's 2nd B-day party. Lots of cake and party pizza and games. Nice time, love playing with my nieces and seeing N's family. Also go to hold our friend S's 3 week old baby girl. She's precious. I got her to fall asleep. She looks like a little gnome. In a painfully cute and sweet way. Later that night was this month's bookclub meeting. A bit painful to get through actually, but good to get together with all the girls. Overall a great weekend when we had nothing planned to start with.

This week I have to find a dog sitter, and plan/pack for the ski-trip next weekend.

One Armed Bandits!

Last night was apparently the last straw. We both seemed to have decided that January in WV is THE most depressing month. Yes, February and March are equally grey and dismal, but with January you have the post-holiday let downs. And we had no events scheduled for this month. We've both spent the majority of our surfing time looking at vacation ideas of sunny-blue skied places we can't afford to go to right now. February we have the Annual Ski-trip and March has a wedding and maybe a Bridal shower or two. But this month has been the longest EVER.

So in attempt to do something different, I suggested let's not just go out, but that we should go to the local dog track/casino. I think we've done this maybe one other time for shits and giggles for no reason. We've been there other times, but usually for work functions. We ended up having a blast!We spent $2.50 on a beer and a diet coke, put $5 in a machine a piece. Moved around the room from machine to machine and kept racking up the points. Gotta love the Cherries and Double Diamonds. Now, the total of what we won is by no means a jackpot, but I was very excited knowing we left there with $35 MORE than we came in with. Like we got one over on the place. We were there for fun, but having worked there in the past in the marketing department, I was used to looking around and seeing the sad souls who were gazing into the slot machines obviously looking to supplement their meager incomes. It can be sad if you let yourself think about it. But we didn't. Drove right over to the Alpha for 1/2 price Appetizer night and ate and drank on our winnings!! We got home in much lighter spirits, also knowing today would be Friday and another week is over.

We do have one other thing to look forward to now. Tonight we got tickets to see the local symphony. My dad is going with us. I'm quite looking forward to it. They're going to play Beethoven's 9th - with two choirs and 4 soloists. It should sound amazing. I also can't wait to dress up a bit and get some culture.

Priorities

At lunch today I had to run through the bank drive-thru. While I was sitting there waiting, a car drove up to my left. It was a beat-up, piece of crap Geo Tracker. The entire passenger side door was missing. It was in the hi-30's today, so it was a bit chilly to be doorless. The guy driving it, was talking to someone on one of the nicer, flashier Blue-Tooth ear-phones. Granted, it might have been a work supplied phone. It was just one of those images that didn't mesh.

Something to keep in mind...people always rag on WV for having hillbilly trucks. A car like this HAD to be from Ohio. They don't have vehicle inspections, so you can drive a car on the highway that is literally held together with bailing twine. Meanwhile in WV you have to get your vehicle inspected annually, and pay a fine if caught without an inspection sticker.

Might be a good idea for me to get mine. It was due in October.

Age-Defying

This being the year of 35 (ok, I'll turn 36, but for the majority of the year I'll be 35) I figured I better start looking into those "anti-agin creams". Luckily I have my mom's great complexion ad I never smoke. I really don't have any wrinkles yet - knock on wood. I do always use moisterizer in the am with an SPF. I like Olay products, so I signed up on their site to have a bunch of diff samples sent to me. So far I've only tried the "Regenerist Anti-Aging Firming Night Cream". For 3 nights. This morning a woke up and have a pebbley rash alll down my cheeks, down my neck and across my forehead. Lovely. Pitched that sample. Now afraid to try to the others. Maybe I'll just drink more water instead. And take my vitamin.

Best thing about the Steelers playing Sunday...

was that there wasn't any traffic of any kind at the Robinson Shopping area in Pittsburgh. I specifically chose to drive up there during the game. PERFECT. It was like a ghost town as everyone was already at the restaurants and bars in the area waiting for the game to start. I meandered through Target and spent over 2 hours grazing at Barnes and Noble. This could be one of my favorite activities. I looked through the following categories, Art and Design, Fertility, Cookbooks, gardening, Pet health, Diets, and cheap books on super sale. I walked out with a book on drawing animals, a supersale chic lit novel for $4.98! and that damn James Frey book. ( I started reading it last night and already annoyed with it) I made a point of telling the cashier that I HAD to buy it for bookclub, I wasn't falling prey to the media buzz over it. He could care less. Oh - I also grazed through the travel section. Thinking that's where I'm going to start buying more books from. Especially the first person accounts of travel. Didn't realize there were so many interesting titles.

Oh yeah, so the Steelers won and are going to the Super Bowl. One) this will make work unbearable as it will be all the men talk about for hours ad nauseum. If the girls talked about Oscar fashions this much we'd be reprimanded for it. Two) the ski trip will be interesting - the majority of the people going are Steelers fans. That Sunday night will be a huge party at the cabin.

Friday night we had my folks up for dinner. It was really nice. We played a little Yahtzee after dinner. Just good to hang out with them.

Sunday we took a long walk out to the farm and fed the horses. The little chestnut pony that had the horribly overgrown hooves finally got a major trim. Now he has cute little pretty hooves. He was getting around great now. Thank god. Felt so bad for him. He was even getting cheaky about getting more apples from us, so he must feel better.

"Diets"

I have been running almost everyday since Jan 1st. I've cut out alllll alcohol. I don't eat any sweets or add sugar to anything. I barely have caffeine, just about 1 cup of tea a day. I'm up to 2.25 miles running. So why am I not losing any weight?

I definitely feel a lot better. The stress release from running has been great. But it would be nice to lose a few pounds while I'm at it.

Keeping in mind that I don't want to lose tons of weight or exercise too aggressively. Things that work against fertility. So I've been checking on some diets. I didn't even look up the Zone, South Beach, Atkins, etc. I think the "Eat for your Type" has to be the dumbest diet idea so far. But I did look at the Sugar Buster and another one that had to do with GIm insulin and hormones. Focusing on these mostly because I had read that too much sugar in your diet can f with your hormones and affect fertility as well. At this point I think sneezing too hard effects your fertility. The Sugar Busters diet made sense. But I already eat close to what it says. I just need to drop out the last bit of caffeine. So I might try it for awhile. But I hate the idea of "diets" I know they should just be lifestyle eating changes. But I honestly don't have too much more room to navigate in the "eating healthy" arena. I also read about a "Fertility Diet" book. I need to add Yams and Pumpkin seeds. Hell, might as well.

Not a lot going on really...

It's mid-January so life is pretty boring. I'm still going strong with my NY resolution to exercise more. I'm up to 2.25 miles. Still in line with getting back to a 5k by the end of the month. I feel so much better for it. Not sure if it's from the running or the stretching. The stretching feels oh so good after a long run. Well, I guess it's actually a short run. Been running on the WJU track for now. Helps to gauge how far I've gone. When I do get to 3 miles I'll hit the streets. Which hopefully will be before I hit one of the WJU track kids. Ok - I know it's THEIR college. But it never looks like an organized practice. We get there at 5:30 and they seem to be wrapping it up anyways. But they still give shitty looks to us for being near them. Run on the inside, they move to the inside, run on the outside, they move to the outside. And of course they're all 22 year old bean poles. Can't wait til they hit mid-30's and have to work at it. Punks. They only ones we like are the LAX boys. Always short and stocky, probably have a beer in their pocket. Always funny and chatty.

Going up to Pittsburgh after to work to hang-out with N. Haven't seen her since before X-mas. Really looking forward to it. We can bitch and moan to each other instead of our spouses. She hates her job and needs a new nanny, I'm bitter about fertility and not drinking. Won't we make a cute pair out tonight?

oh - went to the dentist yesterday. Went well, clean bill of teeth. Except for the crown I knew I needed. Damn it. Hate the idea of it. Hate the sound of the drill. I could deal with the pain, just not the sound. I swear it's worse. First time to this dentist. He's our neighbor and his wife is in bookclub with me. The nicest dentist office I've ever been to. SEE...this is how boring it is...I'm giving details on going to the DENTIST!!! Ugh!!

The end of January is the annual Ski-trip to Snowshoe. Looking forward to getting away. but not dealing with all the bickering that ensues. Just want to ski. Not fight about who gets what room. Grow up people.

Oh, had a lovely bit of a day-dream this morning at work. Noticed the cows at the stable had a photo-op in the paper. Said they've starting to lease horses. So I checked the sales online and they're selling a bunch of the summer trail horses off. Including the sweet little chestnut horse I really enjoyed riding. Only $1500!! LOVE to buy him. But the last thing I need realistically right now. But it is nice to day-dream about. This dream is ongoing along with what style and how big of a greenhouse I'll have one day.

That is something I'm looking forward to. Getting the garden started. Ordering the seeds/plants. Doing pre-season maintenance, etc. Can't wait for blue skies and sunshine alllll day until 8pm sunsets on the deck.

Well, that's about it. Nothing else toooo exciting going on. Maybe I'll post again this weekend when something happens. If anything happens.

Me and Jodi

Someone...ahem...mentioned that she still hadn't made it onto my blog. Well here you go - 7 months pregnant! The world's cutest pregnant mom.

Get a Refund!

This month my book clubs selection is "A Million Tiny Pieces" by James Frey. I have to say I have no desire to read this book. I read the synopsis and reviews, and it just sounds like so much cussing and graphic violence and puking and detox, just for the sake of being graphic. I've got enough stress in life I don't need to read about someone else going through hell. One girl in the club actually quit reading it, but then a few others have raved about it.

But now all this news is coming out from The Smoking Gun, that most of this guys memoir is a bunch of bunk. Extremely expanded upon versions of what might have happened in his life. But even better yet - the publisher is offering refunds if you bought the book directly from them, and telling people to try and get refunds from the bookstore if that's where they bought it from. That's pretty bold.

What sucks is I still have to buy the stupid book because it's the selection for the month - UGH!!

When I was reading the reviews for the book, this was the one I liked the best - really made me NOT want to read it:


Mediocre Pulp Fiction At Best, January 11, 2006
Reviewer:
Kavity Killer (denver, colorado United States) I'm a dentist. I work at a public health clinic. I do all sorts of procedures on all sorts of people. Addicts, convicts, meth heads, you name it. I can tell you unequivocally that Frey's nightmarish tale of dental work is absolutely false. I use local anasthetic on all of the above and worse with NO problems. So what's the big deal if Mr. Frey wants to spin an interesting fictional tale and attempt to pass it off as a memoir? Well, for one it exploits the sympathies of well meaning but naive book buyers. Secondly it sesationalizes, and thereby trivializes, the suffering of REAL addicts. Third, it just fosters the type of outrage and disillusion that this world really doesn't need any more of. Mr. Frey, you are a dishonest, greedy, loser. For all your talk about "throwing down" why don't you step up and tell the truth like a man?

We caught two mice!

Without meaning to...

Here's my standard morning:
Wake-up
Groggily walk to the front door and let April out.
Turn on either kettle or coffee pot.
Go back, let April in.
Still groggy at this point.
Open door to garage.
While still standing on step, and without really looking, reach down, flip back lid and scoop out a cup of dog food for April, close door, dump food in her bowl, proceed to get ready for day.

Only this morning, when I went to scoop out the food, right as I put my hand halfway in the dogfood bin, I heard "scurry scurry meep meep" I hate to say it but I yelled like a girl. I'm not scared of mice, but when you're still half asleep, your defenses are down. Who ever got out food for Grape Ape last left the lid off, probably because it's almost empty. This is actually the second time we've had a mouse dive into the bin. There is no-way they can get out once they're in there. So it actually works great as a cruel free trap. They get to eat the last of the food, we cart them off and dump them in the woods. This time though, I didn't look in the bin. I left if for D to deal with - I got the last one. I called him at work today and he said it's actually two mice. Just field mice - huge big ears - really friggin cute. That's why I don't want to kill them. They only come into the garage in the winter.

So the new year started

Today's the first day I've felt like updating. I didn't bother over the holidays because the internet connection at D's parents house is so slow it's painful. Then I got back to work and you have to play a bit of catch-up being gone for a week. Coupled with finding out the first day back to work my Graphic Design Assistant's father was the first miner killed in the Sago Mine accident. Just a bad start to the new year.

We had a great holiday visit in Philly. Lots of good family quality time. Saw "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "Syriana" Both good movies although totally different. Watched both from the front row. Bit too close. We also went into NY for a day. Saw D's brother's place in Brooklyn, went to a few shops. ABC is this huge 5 story furniture and home store. Very cool. Would have loved to spend more time there. Had lunch in Soho. Saw the actor Chris Noth (Mr. Big) on the subway platform. Nervous dude. We spent New Years in DC with our friends. Not enough time with them, but a great night none the less. Then it was home. So good to be home. If I could wrap my house around me like a blanket some days I would.

Starting work Monday and finding out about Amber's dad was awful. We all felt so bad for the kid. She had just had her last day with us the previous Friday, and was moving down to live with her dad to start a new, better job in Morgantown. As she was driving down Monday morning she heard the news about the accident. It's just been awful for all of the people involved. We saw her this past Friday. She's doing really well considering. She has a lot of family down there helping her and her brother. We told her we were really proud of her and how she's handled herself in the TV interviews, etc.

This past weekend was our first full weekend at home. Spent most of it doing major spring cleaning. D got a home surround sound entertainment system for Xmas, so he hooked it up, and we tacked up, drilled, covered the wires. You can barely see them now. It sounds great. We watched LOTRs last night to it. It felt good to get everything in the Living and Dining room cleaned, but I still have several rooms to do.

We did go out Saturday night for a bit. But it's different not drinking. I'm actually really apprehensive about this year in general. I gave myself time-off of even thinking about "baby" from Sept til Jan. Now it's January, so I'm starting back on no alcohol, no coffee, extra supplements for both of us, exercising more, running almost every day. It felt good giving myself a break, but knowing I've got to start the emotional rollercoaster again sucks. Over Christmas I counted 6 friends preg. 2 had them over the holidays. We're going to start treatments soon, so the added worry of the cost for that doesn't help. And I've been more emotional about it in general than I think I've let myself get. Kept a lid on it. Now I kind of dread going to babyshowers, etc. I had a conversation last night with a girl, who knows how long I've been trying, and she's such an idiot. She starts going on and on about how her first kid is almost 5, and she's 35, and if she wants a second one she better start soon, cuz she's getting older, and how it gets harder,blah, blah,blah. I wanted to say - no shit. As you sit there and chug beer and probably cold get pregnant without thinking about it. I'm drinking water and think about nothing else all day.

In the meantime, running again and eating healthier has made a big difference in how I've felt in general. In February I plan on starting yoga classes again. I'm not this month as we're going on our annual ski trip to Snowshoe, putting all my extra money towards that. And I'm really looking forward to it. Just a vacation for us will be great.

Other things to look forward to...we walked up and checked out the garden, all covered up for winter. Dad and I talked about going in together to buy seeds, plants soon. Very excited to get all the garden plans started. And to start working outside. Oh - and LOST. Thank god it starts back up again this week! It's the little things that help get you through the week. : )