three wishes

I'm all out of good ideas, so I'm using one of the NaBloPoMo prompts: if you had three wishes, what would they be?

I'm going to guess that wishing for more wishes is out, as is bringing back people from the dead or making someone fall in love with you (our time will come, Daniel Craig); I think it boils down to the rules for wishing in Aladdin. So, here we go.

1. Health for my family. I would want the three of us to be healthy--especially Brandon. We're lucky so far, but if I could make his back better, I would.

2. Financial security. Enough said.

3. For all my friends who are trying to conceive to get pregnant and have tons of babies. Or, as many as they'd want.

My wishes are so grown up now, which is kind of sad in itself. I guess that's what happens when you turn awesome. Five years ago, they would be so different from the wishes I would have had 15 years ago. Remember we would have wanted candy? Or to be an adult so we could do what we wanted? Or a swingset?

What would your wishes be? 

adventure time

Today, Birdy and I went river rafting.

In our living room.

On the Xbox, the new sister-wife we welcomed into our family in an intimate ceremony involving our debit card and a rather crowded Microsoft Store.

Xbox is fitting in well, and has already helped facilitate family time today. She seems to be a real gem.

But the river rafting. Like I said, it was on the Xbox, and it's pretty simple. Like any river rafting experience, you're on a raft, and you have to get as many tokens as you can by leaning around the raft and jumping. Totally normal, done it a thousand times in real life. But doing it with a three year old is an etirely  new experience. Those are times that I realize just how competitive I am. She was irritating the bejeezus out of me because she didn't understand the leaning and shuffling side-to-side. The fact that she is three and never had done it before escaped me as all the little tokens kept going by, unclaimed by us. I did manage to get a hold of myself and calmed down so I wouldn't be such a nut about it.

It does seem pretty fun, and the Hoosband is enjoying his Christmabirthday present quite a bit. I just need to get that other kid off my raft so I can get those precious tokens.

Photo from http://www.thedomesticscientist.com/2008/09/08/home-is-where-the-controller-is/

the black pearl

There is a student here who looks EXACTLY like this photo. It's uncanny, really, and a little disconcerting, to be showing someone how to make coffee and BAM, there's Johnny. Or, checking menus or stocking cookies and BAM, Johnny. I see him nearly every night, and I'm still not used to it.

I'm serious: he has the facial hair, and the hats, and the glasses. I'm sure he has a French wife hidden somewhere on campus, and giant scissors under his bed, and is planning a lunch date with Tim Burton to discuss his latest project.

Photo courtesy of celebrityimage.info

harrassing

Tonight I had the privilege of completing a company-wide mandatory three hour sexual harassment training. On the computer. And it was narrated, and you had to go at a set pace...no skipping ahead.

Within 30 seconds of the narration beginning, I imagined sitting down to this training and having my mom narrate it. It entertained me for literally three hours, imagining that it was my mom saying these things to me. One of the better parts was when they were talking about tone and inflection in compliments,as in "Nice haircut." Try and say that as skeezy as you can. Then imaging your mom saying it. That's the kind of humor you have to grasp at on your last work day of the week, you know?

The training was also full of photos of people looking vaguely accusatory. They seemed to be thinking "this is your fault, you and your sexist thoughts and having relations in the bank vault with me, your assistant (that really happened, it was a court case, and I learned all about it).

Did you know propositioning someone you work with is sexual harassment? I can't believe there would need to be clarification on that. I think propositioning ANYONE, ANYWHERE would be sexual harassment. That just seems like a no-brainer. In fact, so much of the information seemed like a no-brainer. The kinds of behavior that people think are acceptable, funny or whatever are mind-boggling.

However, I did decide to treat myself to chicken fingers and sweet potato fries for being such an awesome and responsible employee coupled with the fact that I'm about 100% positive I haven't sexually harassed someone in the workplace before.

I am also 100% sure that sweet potato fries are delicious.

Also, NICE HAIRCUT.

metamorphosis

I have some hard news to share: Birdy may be a vampire.

On the day this photo was taken, she insisted on sleeping with all the curtains shut tight so it looked very close to twilight in the house. And then, when she got up, she wanted a snack. Like anyone would do, I put her in her chair and opened the blinds.

You would have thought the sun was burning her alive the way she screamed that it was too bright. Please note the lighting in the photo--it was cloudy outside. She wouldn't calm down until I found her sunglasses; she proceeded to wear them for the next hour. In the semi-darkness.

Does this mean we have to move to Washington now?

NaBloPoMo

If you are either a writer, someone who wants a challenge, a challenging writer, or whatever, you may have heard of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. It's in November of each year, and the challenge is to write a novel in one month. I actually know someone who has done this, and it's pretty impressive. I'd like to do it one day (year), but that is on hold for a while.

Thus, since novel writing is too daunting, I'm doing something a little more manageable: NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. They do it each month with a theme, but November is the general themed month where the object is to post every day. This, again, sounded manageable.

I've found, however, that getting into the groove of writing again is difficult. It doesn't matter that I can string words together and have them make sense; it's that writing something that I would actually want to read again every day is hard. If this was in a journal, that would be fine, because no one reads that but me and that sounds like a much better place for writing exercises to take place. When I'm doing it here, in front of people, it's different. Having people see you when you know you aren't your best is humbling, to say the least. And it's also funny to me that I'm self-conscious about this.

I suppose that is the goal of this exercise though, pushing me to be better at something every day that I wouldn't do otherwise. Perhaps next year will be the novel?

fashion nonsense

Isn't this photo precious? Birdy, holding her puppy away from the other puppy, wearing a poufy skirt and no shirt? News flash: it's endearing when you are a toddler. After that, we wear clothes. Who failed to communicate that to Birdy?

This photo was taken a year and a half ago. Fast forward to now, and the not wearing clothes thing is wearing a little thin. Birdy has always enjoyed being in her underwear, but now that she's three and a half (gulp), I'm kind of sick of it. I didn't get to go to pilates today because SOMEONE didn't want to wear a skirt over her leggings. Now, as some of you may know, I hate it when people wear leggings as if they are pants. They aren't pants. They are underwear. However, all of the women at the college where we live failed to get that memo, and I live daily with women in leggings acting as if they are pants. So this issue? With the leggings and no skirt? It's the hill I decided to die on today. And die I did.

I gave her the option of a dress or a skirt, but none were "comfy" enough. And pants were an automatic no, as all pants are not comfy, unless they are one of the two pairs of Children's Place yoga pants we inherited from the Mak Attack . So after a 2 time outs and much weeping and gnashing of teeth, Birdy decided to compromise and put on bicycle shorts over the leggings. She better get this out of her system now, because no one wants to be friends with the 12 year-old wearing leggings and bicycle shorts.

Though, that would save me from carpooling her friends around...

sweat

I want to share something with you, friends.

My name is Heather, and I hated gym class.

The cool feeling of buying the uniform we wore for P.E. in seventh grade (I'm a teenager! I have braces! I could be in a John Hughes movie!) quickly wore off when I realized after the second class that we wore different clothes in P.E. because we would sweat. And when you are a teenager, you smell like puberty. And for the sake of the adults who have to be at school with you, they make you wear different clothes when you are not sweating. However, being a teenager, you are inherently smelly. Especially if you are a boy.

But anyway, I hate sweating. A lot. That is why I liked swimming, because you knew you were working hard, but you didn't feel yourself sweating. Because it's a gross feeling. Just...gross.

So here's the thing they really try to teach you in gym class: you feel like an idiot when you work out. But so do most people. Thus, get over it and work out because it's good for you and no one really cares that you look like an idiot on the treadmill or whatever because WE ALL LOOK LIKE IDIOTS RUNNING IN PLACE.

I'm on strike from running for a while, until I'm convinced I'm not going to just fall down when my ankle decides to sprain itself for the third time this year. THE THIRD TIME. Ugh.

So it's swimming for me, because if you can fall down while swimming then you must be given some sort of award, right? And swimming is good, but realizing how good it is is rather difficult when the pool is outside and it's 45 degrees and dark. And also 7am. The benefit is that I'm not terrible compared to other people, but I am terrible compared to how good I used to be. I think that is the hardest part: coming to terms to how different things are now. I have a benchmark (several, really) of how I used to be able to swim, and having concrete information to compare myself to now is kind of a bummer.

In conclusion, being fat is lame on a variety of levels. Everything is harder, and nothing is easier until you've done a lot of changing. And sweating. Ugh.

it's always sunny on my couch

So...there's this show. Well, if we're splitting hairs here, there's two shows...Family Guy and It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia. They are awesome, and they are shows my mother hates.

I started watching Family Guy in college, and it's the cause of my reoccuring sprained ankle injuries. It's a long story, but it involves the Shapoopie song from Music Man and myself dancing enthusiasticly with Peter Griffin. Also, it really, really, really hurt. I love all of Family Guy, because it's terrible. It's horrible. And it's wonderful, and hilarious. There are things on that show that keep me chuckling for days, and I'm at the point where when watching, the Hoosband just looks at me, knowing I'm going to start laughing like an idiot.

And I really am an idiot, because I also like It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia.

It's also terrible, and horrible, and much more so than Family Guy. But it's hilarious. Much like Family Guy, they start out doing one thing, and something totally different happens. But with the gang, it's most likely illegal, immoral, involving drugs, or people in green body suits. That show is guilty humor to the max. If you haven't seen it, it centers around these 5 people; a brother (Dennis), sister (Dee), their dad (Frank), and two friends (Charlie and Mac). Dee is probably my favorite character, but the triangle between Dennis, Charlie and Mac is my favorite dynamic. They're always competing and ganging up on each other, and, of course, shenanigans ensue. My favorite episodes cover topics like rum hams, crack, YouTube videos, bar advertisements, and North Korea. The gang takes care of business, okay?

So I encourage you to watch an episode, but please don't judge me.

April, you shouldn't watch any of them, because you will throw up all over Mark, the computer, or the sofa. Or all three.

running to the hills

When I get interested in something, I really get interested. And the first thing I do, after Wikipedia-ing it to death, is go to the library and check out way too many books on the subject. Then, I proceed to think about it all the time and obsess about it in general. Recent topics have included Appalachia, Amsterdam and earthquake preparedness.

In the last month or so, I've been obsessing about survival. I mean, when the world ends and junk, we're going to have to go to the hills. And I'm totally going to be prepared. Justin, a friend down here who actually COULD survive in the hills if need be, assured me that when the time comes to go to the hills, I'll be ready. But I want to be the ready-est, if you know what I mean.

I remember reading My Side of the Mountain when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and being amazed that a kid could just run away and live in the mountains. I re-read this book in college and found it still interesting, but it was a bit of wake-up call. I know no practical skills that would help me stay alive. I can write papers. I can find information. I can't tell you what plants to eat, or how to grow my own food. Or build a house. Or anything along those lines.

Living in an area that is prone to earthquakes coupled with my worrywart tendencies have created a perfect storm of paranoia surrounding disasters and survival. Christine, Justin's wife, is more than ready to join me in the paranoia, and we've compiled large earthquake kits and worked out a plan to get us together at the university if something should happen. Not that it will. Hopefully. Anyway.

Luckily, my best good friend Brianna humors me, and even checked out books on survival as well; in my mind, it was so that we could compare trapping tactics and sod-house building, but I really know it's because she thinks I'm ridiculous (which I fully admit I am). She also, to further demonstrate her awesome-ness, got me this for my birthday. We're going in the spring in the Santa Cruz mountains, and it's going to be a great story to tell people later on. Plus I'll learn how to make a fire! And find things to eat! And stuff! Junk!

So, when the time comes to go to the hills, you can come with me. Unless you become a zombie, and then I'm going to ask you to forget that I mentioned going to the hills and stay in the abandoned cities, if you please.