Why April Will Stink

Just a glimpse into part of the weekend at the Woestman house.  Joey was working on a gargantuan paper and I was bored.  He was in the study and I was in the living room.  Pretty much the entire conversation took place on opposite sides of the house with the two of us hollering back and forth because I had a case of The Boreds so bad that I was incapable of moving from my chair.  (And if Gail Showman heard me say that she'd tell me to go sweep the floor, so it's a good thing she doesn't read this blog.)

Me:  Are you done yet?
Joey:  No.  I have...8 more points left.
Me: trying to read a book but putting it down  How long will 8 points take?
Joey:  Probably two hours.
Me:  Two hours?!  Gosh...that paper is wicked long.  I'm bored.

And, once the floor sweeping word (that would be "bored" for those of you who didn't grow up sweeping Gail's floor just about every Saturday) was uttered, I knew I had to do something.  So I tried to fold the towels.  It took about three times longer than normal because I kept getting distracted by things.  Then I started another load of laundry and considered folding the sheets I had taken out of the dryer.  That was clearly too much effort, so I left them on the floor (I KNOW!!) and went back to my chair to holler back and forth across the house with Joey.

Me:  Did you write some more?
Joey:  Yes.
Me:  Will you be done soon?
Joey:  Still about two hours.

Henry came over and tried to get me to play with him.  But I was too bored to exert the effort required to throw his chocolate covered strawberry toy across the house, so he finally just lay down at my feet.  I decided to order a pizza for dinner because it would require me to go get it.  So I did.  Henry and I left the house at 6:15 and didn't return until 7:15 because I got lost on the way to the pizza place and then found it, only to discover that I had ordered from a totally different location altogether.  Not to be deterred, I had them make me another pizza and I stayed there to wait for it.

After the pizza was consumed and the kitchen was cleaned up, I went into the office.

Me:  So...what about those Half Price Books coupons?
Joey:  I'm almost done.  Want me to go with?  Or maybe you could walk over now and then when you get back I'll be finished.
Me:  Good idea.

So I walked to Half Price books, bought two books which would have each been $13 dollars brand new for a total of $5.50, once the coupons were factored in, and came home.

Joey:  I finished my paper!
Me:  HOORAY!  Now I want you to sit on the couch and read a book for fun for awhile.  I will bake you cookies.
Joey:  OK!

And so he did, and I did.

I'm going to have to come up with something to do the next couple weekends besides hang out with my superfun husband because I think I'm probably a distracting annoyance.  Bring on the first week in May!

Henry's New Trick

Earth Hour part 2

It's one of those lovely spring mornings where the ground is wet, the air is tepid and the birds are jawing back and forth like the Jets and the Sharks. I'm sitting outside the Clubhouse freeloading off the Internets so I can run my Googlebox. I wanted to post some pictures of our successful Earth Hour last night! Let me tell you, it's hard to make lasagne in the dark, especially when using spelt noodles for the first time...those things do not act normally.

Joey whipped out his camera and took several pictures of Cuz trying to read the Bourne Identiy in the dark. Poor Cuz.


Woah, I'm outta battery. Gotta go back home now!

Earth Hour!

I checked my email today and had a jolly email from Laura asking me if I'd seen that Google was black today and if Joey and I were participating in Earth Hour. Seeing that Earth Hour is an environment cause, I was immediately on board and clicked my way over to the page to read about it.

People participating in Earth Hour turn the lights off in their homes from 8pm to 9pm in their respective time zones on March 29 to raise awareness about our massive global energy usage.

That is why, after I'm done posting this post, I am going to go home and make lasagne in the dark. I'm serious. I hope it turns out and I don't burn anything.

Good thing Laura emailed me about it.

Whistle While You Work

OK, so I can't whistle, it's true. (Joey has tried to teach me, but to no avail.) But the concept is still there.

I hate to iron. I hate it even worse than vacuuming and, as all my siblings know from growing up, I will do almost anything to avoid vacuuming. Conveniently Brother actually liked to vacuum, but I always made sure to beat everyone else to the chore chart on Saturdays so I could pick dusting and cleaning the bathrooms and not get stuck running the vacuum. But this has nothing to do with ironing.

On Tuesday night I walked into the closet after work and was almost knocked over by the pile of ironing that I had been "saving for a rainy day". I'd like to think that someday when I don't have a full time, semi-stressful job I will wear a linen apron and high heels around my house and joyfully iron every shirt as soon as it comes out of the dryer, all while making applesauce and strawberry jam. Unfortunately this is not my reality, though, so I pile the ironing and usually do it once a week. (I think it had been two or three weeks worth, though, because the ironing was starting to weigh down the ironing board.)

"I have to do ironing tonight," I said glumly to Joey. "I hate ironing. It's hot and boring."

"You'll probably be OK," he reassured me.

"Can you set up the ironing board for me? If it's already set up then I'll feel like a loaf if I sit here and look at it knowing that I still have to do ironing this evening."

Joey happily agreed to set up the ironing board (probably because 2 of his pairs of khakis are in that ironing pile) and we moved it out into the large empty space in between the living room and Joey's study. He flopped himself on the futon and started to read this 5 lb. textbook while I filled the water in the iron and made sure it was plugged in.

I could no longer stall. I had to bite the bullet.

"I'm going to put my iPod on while I do this, OK?" I always check first if I wear my iPod in the house.

"Sure," he said.

"That means that I might sing. Loudly. It will keep me from wanting to poke my eye out."

"No problem," he replied.

So I cranked up my iPod and started singing along, rather softly at first. It never takes long, though, before I start to wonder if the neighbors can hear me. But this time I didn't care because I was ironing. Ew. After awhile, though, the song that Sister and I sang at Christmas came up and I forgot that Joey was studying. I forgot that I was ironing. I was pretending that I was back home in Faith Bible Church singin' with Sister and Mom on the piano. Because of my little daydream, I had momentarily forgotten that I was doing ironing and I was probably singing so loud that I was blowing off the rafters. (But then I quickly stopped doing that because I was getting homesick and one should try to avoid homesickness while doing ones least favorite chore.)

Joey got up and went over to the iPod bowl (yes, we have a bowl of iPods) and got out his Shuffle.

"What, is it that bad?" I teased him.

"I can't concentrate," he replied. I guess I don't really blame him. I mean, I was harmonizing with Chris Rice and that's got to sound extremely silly to someone on the other side of the headphones.

And, shortly, after singing my way through the ironing...I was done. Forty minutes after I started. Gosh I hate ironing.

Joey was almost asleep last night when I asked, "If I wanted to walk to Iowa, how long would it take?  Gas prices are wicked high."

He didn't say anything for awhile, I thought he was asleep.  Then, "Three months."

"Oh, that's a long time.  What if...hypothetically speaking...I wanted to saddle up Henry and ride him to Iowa so I wouldn't have to walk.  How long would that take?"

This was a very hypothetical situation since:
a.)  Henry is a dog
b.)  He only weighs 14 pounds and that's a lot, lot less than me
c.)  Henry walks really slow

"I think....6 months."

"Oh," I said, "So I guess I'll never do that then."

"No..." he said, driftily.

A few minutes later I said, "I can't sleep.  I'm not tired at all."

Joey recommended that I go out in the living room and read a book.  (I think maybe he wanted me to leave him alone and not ask him any more hypothetical situation type questions.)

Since posting the previous, Joey found the pictures for me and we discovered that the waterproof case for the camera actually costs more than the camera itself. (I figure we might as well forgo that purchase.)

But here are the pictures. It pretty much looks like a camera.


(That spidery looking thing is called a Gorillapod and you can wind it around tree branches and stuff if you need to take self portraits or group pictures and you're in the wild with no one nearby to hold the camera.)

My New Camera

I'm in big trouble. Two days ago Joey sent me pictures of my cute new camera so I could post them on my blog, but I lost them somewhere on my computer. I have no idea where they got saved when I pulled them out of Mail Big File. And, thus, I have none to show you.

But I finally got my new little point and shoot. It's a teensy little Canon PowerShot, 7.1 megapixels and is about the size of a pack of Trident sticks. It takes wicked awesome pictures that are sure to make my Pops jealous (a major selling point when selecting aforementioned camera) and he has instructed me to "bring it on Boundary Waters".

Joey is now looking into a getting its waterproof case because, knowing us, if we take it up there we'll manage to drop it in the lake.

Because my camera is so tiny I can carry it with me wherever I go now (it's here with me as I speak), which makes me a lot cooler than I ever was before because I can now post all sorts of pictures of the trouble we find ourselves in.

And if I hadn't lost the files I could post some pictures of my camera right now. Joey even had some of it all hooked up on its Gorillapod tripod thingy, but...I can't.

180˚

Two nights ago Joey said, "I have this song I want to play for you. It's by Linkin Park; the Kid sent it to me."

"Linkin Park?"  I asked, surprised.  Two years ago he'd have never mentioned such a thing.

"Yeah, we analyzed the music video at work.  It's really well done artistically, plus the song is cool."

And so Joey cranked up the speakers and "What I've Done" pulsed through our apartment.

"Oh, I know this song," I said a few bars in.

"You do?"  Joey asked.

"Yep...I used to love Linkin Park," I replied.

"I did not know that about you," he told me.  And turned up the music a little bit more and sang along.  Only the song was so loud I could barely hear him.

"Do you think Downstairs Neighbor will get upset?"  I asked loudly.

But he didn't hear me.  He just kept singing along, so I went to start a load of laundry, smiling at this example of just one major changes our lives have gone through in the last couple years.

Linkin Park cranked to 11?  No problem at all.  I could really get used to this whole freedom in Christ thing.

While I was at the gym trying to stay balanced on a half-moon shaped ball and trying not to fall off, Joey was at home getting ready to ride his bike in to work. He came back in the bedroom to make the bed after he finished getting ready and found this...

The Easter Dress

Every year of my entire life I have gotten an Easter dress. Joey has continued the tradition since we've been married and, last week, he said "We need to go shopping for your Easter dress. I have it all picked out, we just need to go buy it."

"OK..." I said, really quite surprised. I figured that I wouldn't get an Easter dress this year, what with living in Dallas and all, but obviously I was wrong. "Are you sure?"

"I like buying you dresses," Joey told me. "Plus I set aside money for it."

Joey took me to the mall and deposited me in front of a short blue dress with a matching jacket.

"The jacket costs more than the dress by, like $20, so we won't get that part until it goes on clearance. But I want you to get this dress right here, go try it on."

I looked at the dress. It was shorter than I normally wore by, like....inches. "It looks short," I said.

"Not too short," he told me, and shooed me off to the fitting room.

I came out of the fitting room and Joey said, "I like it. We're buying it."

And that was that.

George vs. Henry

On Friday morning, we got up at 8:00 and rushed around the house finishing up the cleaning. Henry wandered around aimlessly, as usual, and fell asleep again here and there before we decided we probably should take the kid outside.

Joey drew the short straw, so he called Henry over to the door and opened it up. Henry stopped dead in his his tracks. Outside the door sat George, the cat monstrosity.


"Jenna, George is outside," he called to me.

I completely freaked out, as usual, and ran haphazardly to get the camera. I handed it carefully to Joey and said, "Take tons of pictures."

He took four. (Only four!) Then he called Henry back to the door and tried to get him to go outside. Henry would have none of it. Joey carried him outside and set him down at the top of the stairs. Henry just sat there looking at George and refusing to move. Joey finally had to pick him up, carry him downstairs to do his thing, then carry him back upstairs.

"Wimp," Joey muttered to Henry. He set him down at the top of the stairs again and, just as he did so, George whipped out his paw and popped Henry in the cheek with his claws. Henry yelped and ran inside.
George: 1
Henry: 0

A rare picture of a photographer in the wild

This past weekend we had an SF retreat in Scroggins, TX (couldn't resist) and more pictures will be coming later. (Probably later in the week, actually.)

But when Joey and I were looking through the few pictures we took, we came across the one I'm about to show you.

"Woah!" he said, "A picture of Laura! Without a camera!"

"That is indeed rare," I concurred.

I think it's a cute picture. And since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, I'm posting it.

Poor Henry

Yesterday afternoon Joey and Henry were playing Henry's favorite game: rough house.  "Rough House" generally involves Henry, his gargantuan CareBear (the one from the Dumpster), and either Joey or I.  Henry was in rare form because we had company, so he was in high spirits and bouncing around like a rabbit - it was pretty cute.  Joey and Henry growling at each other and swiping at each other's paws in a way that would scare my mom for fear of "What if Henry bites him?"

Poor Mom.

Anyways, there they were on the floor, Henry with his front two paws on Joey's knee bouncing and swatting as though his little, furry, freshly-bathed life depended on it.  But suddenly, he let out the most torturous puppy scream I've ever heard and jumped back, limping with his back right leg.

"HENRY!!"  I screamed, "What did you do to him?"  I asked Joey.

"I have no idea what happened...I wasn't even touching his back legs,"  Joey said, going over to our poor puppy and scooping him up gently.  Henry had large eyes - larger than usual - and was very quiet and still.

"We killed him!"  I wailed, trying to decide what one does it one's dog-child has a medical emergency on a weekend.  (They don't treat dogs at the local hospital last I checked.)

The guests and Joey hovered around poor Henry and examined his back right leg.  The muscles were tense and shaking.  I felt decidedly sick.  I will be a basket case when this is my own child!  I thought. (But I am not pregnant.)

"Poor Buddy!" I said loudly.  Joey put down the fluffy puppy and he limped over to the chair and lay down in front of it.  I couldn't bear to have my puppy being in pain, so I went over and picked him up and massaged his right leg.  I could feel what seemed to be an icky muscle cramp so I kept rubbing.  After a few moments, his leg stopped twitching and I set him down on the ground.  He walked over to Joey without so much as a hitch in his gitalong and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"Wow...what happened?"  I asked.

"I have absolutely no idea.  Maybe he twisted wrong on his leg while he was bouncing around?"  Joey suggested. "Could have been a cramp, too."

In any case, Henry is fine now.  We took him on a nice walk last evening and he pranced along like the trooper he always is.  (He even got his freshly washed paws into something nice and black so they are now a very dark shade of gray.)

We may be, just maybe, too attached to our puppy.

Bob The Bum

The Kid recently said to me, "Lady, read this. I wrote it when I was small."

And so I did.

He was a real strange kid, as you're about to find out. One should mention that, when The Kid wrote the story you're about to read he was unaware of what "snogging" is and didn't realize that "Lea" is actually a woman's name.

Bob The Bum

by Alex Laird

Bob was a very lazy gourd. Ever since Bob was born, 82 years ago at 1212 Gourds Road, Gourdyville Minnesota, he's been sitting around watching sports and TV shows, not paying any attention to the people around him. Bob's parents Amy and Lea Snogging, tried to stop him from watching all those soap operas, comedies and sports games. All the soap operas were bad, some of the comedies were fine, like "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," or "Life with Lou," but some weren't.

Bob would run the remote with his long red tail, and hold his coke with one of his blue hands. In the other hand he would hold a gooey chewy chocolate bar. Bob would listen with his two big white ears, and watch with his 4 regular eyes. He would eat and drink from his two tube eyes, which also served as telescopes. On the top of Bob's head he had red hair. Bob always wore a hat.

Now Bob is old, serious, and grumpy.

Bob's parents died 12 years ago and he was sad, but relieved that he could now watch all the comedies, soap operas, and sports games that he wanted to.

In Bob's spare time, he would call Best Buy and tell them that he was coming in to work. Bob's would eat Pizzas and Tacos every day.

If you can't beat 'em...

Our cozy little apartment has a stackable washer and dryer tucked away in a closet. (The closet has French doors and two weeks ago I walked past and was horrified to notice that the slats were covered in lint and dust. I dropped everything and cleaned them, much to the chagrin of my husband who said, "I bet nobody even noticed that before. I never did and I live here.")

But last Wednesday, the spin cycle on our washer gave up the ghost.

"Joey, something's wrong with this washer. The towels are dripping wet." He came over to analyze and, after a short time, it was decided that our washer was busted and there was nothing left to do but call Maintenance.

The next day when we came home there was a note on our table telling us that our washer and dryer unit was to be replaced.

"I'm so excited!" I squealed. "Maybe the new one will be more energy efficient! And quieter!"

Joey was kind of ambivalent about the whole affair, mostly because the discovery of a new washer-dryer unit came around dinner time and he was hungry.

Later in the evening, though, when I was pulling out whatever had been in the dryer, I thought of something. I glanced down in the space between the washer and the wall and I gasped.

Now, for those of you who may be deceived and think I'm really...neurotic about keeping my house clean, this'll bring you a good dose of reality. (Mom, don't read this next part. You will lose all confidence in my housekeeping abilities.) For the last year, instead of throwing the lint from my dryer away, I have been stuffing it in the space between the washer and the wall. I began doing this after we moved in and I noticed that someone before us had done the same. It was disgusting, true, but all the lint was already down there and lint is disgusting anyway...so I figured I'd just join in.

But, friends, after a year of lint removal...the lint is now entirely fills the empty space between the washer and the wall (it's a good 2 1/2 inches) and is halfway up the washer.

"JOEY! What do we do? The repairmen are going to get avalanched by lint when they come to change out our washer and...nobody was ever supposed to know that I do this!"

He glanced down at The Lint Problem. "Ooh. Yeah, that's bad. Maybe the vacuum? We could suck it out with one of the attachments?"

"That might work," I said. And then we forgot about it.

Until today. I called the office to find out when they were replacing my unit and was told by a cheerful lady, "Oh, today probably."

The lint!! I thought. I am so in for it when I get home....it will be all over my carpet...and my secret will be totally out. The repairman is going to think I'm the biggest, scurviest housekeeper he's ever encountered and he'll tell all his repairman friends about the lint cache he found in our apartment.

This is what I get for just assuming that stuffing lint down a crack would make it go away.

But you wanna know something really bad? I used to throw the lint behind the dryer when I was a kid. Even though I knew I wasn't supposed to. (I really hope Mom stopped reading way up there or she'll probably make a huge lint mess in my house when they come down in May to pay me back for my childhood disobedience.)

It Came Back To Bite Me

Three years ago I had a dreadfully embarrassing thing happen to me. You know, like the kind that women submit to those ladies magazines? Well, three years ago I worked for a Chiropractor in Iowa and, on one slow afternoon when no one was coming in, we found ourselves flipping through one of those aforementioned ladies magazines that was floating around in the lobby. We were bored.

I had recently shared my embarrassing moment with my coworkers and suddenly one suggested "Jenna! You have to submit it to this magazine, I'm really sure they'd put it in."

"I don't know..." I hedged.

"Do it," they said. I wrote down the email address for submissions and slipped it in my purse.

And so, the next time I was at Kirkendall Public Library I found myself typing an email to a certain magazine's submissions department.

After several weeks of not receiving a response, I got distracted by my upcoming wedding and forgot all about the whole thing.

Imagine my surprise, then, when last month I received an email from the magazine. I almost deleted it without reading it first, but on a whim I opened it up. Was I ever surprised when I read:

"Thank you for submitting your embarrassing moment. We are going to publish it in our April issue. What is the city and state where you live?"

I emailed back with my city and state before thinking about what I had just done.

Oh. My. Gosh. What if people read the magazine and recognize me? I can't even remember what exactly I wrote!! So I freaked myself out but good and started checking the magazine racks at the grocery store with a paranoid frequency.

And then. Yesterday. I received an email from someone I barely know asking me "was that you in the April issue of such-and-such magazine?"

Yes, yes it was me.

I was feeling more embarrassed about submitting The Story than I was about The Story itself. Ugh. At this point, my panic to find a copy of the April issue of such-and-such magazine increased about...tenfold. I had checked both Targets just the day before and had been unsuccessful in finding April, so I figured I had several more days to psych myself up for the impending "was that you?" that I was sure to receive. Come on, how many Jenna Woestmans from Dallas could there possibly be?

That's what I thought too.

Last night we were out on the town with some friends from Iowa who have been down sleeping on our air mattress and getting jumped on by Henry the Evil Fiend, and we passed a Borders.

"Can I stop in there on the way back? I...I need to check something," I asked. Everyone was nice and acquiesced. An hour and a half later, I found myself walking out of the Borders with The April Issue in my hand. It was duly passed around and read by all. (That's what I get, huh?)

And, so, I am finally published. In a ladies magazine which, unless you are a girl and ask extremely nicely, will henceforth remain unnamed.

"You can put this in your portfolio, hon! You got published!" Joey teased me.

Now there's an idea.

Hmmm....

So I was looking at my SiteMeter and noticed that some poor soul in Austria Googled "How to inform someone if mother-in-law died" and they got to MY blog.  I have no idea why The Google thought my blog had any information about how to break the news of a mother-in-law's passing. I feel kind of bad now.

MY mother-in-law is quite alive and well, last I checked. (Although I might need to call her to ensure that my information is still accurate.)  And as I clearly have no experience in this area, I can offer no advice on how to inform anyone their mother-in-law has passed on.

I'm quite glad mine's still here.

The Bike Ride

"Let's take our bikes to White Rock and ride around the lake trails after I finish changing the oil," Joey suggested.

It was a beautiful afternoon yesterday.  The kind where the sun is shining warmly, there's a breeze bringing just enough cool air off the lake to be comfortable, and the Robins are out digging for worms.  I had to agree that it was his best idea all day, so we finished up our chores (it was Spring Cleaning weekend...) and in less than an hour had Thunder and Joey's bike strapped to the back of the car.

"Ohh, it's so warm!" I exclaimed, and rolled down my window.  Joey rolled it back up shortly and turned on the A/C.  "Aww, nuts," I muttered under my breath.  He didn't hear me.

It turned out that just about every single person in Dallas also thought that biking at White Rock was an exceptional idea.  We had a terrible time finding a parking spot but, after several minutes of looking, we prevailed.  Joey unhooked the bikes and got everything set up.  (He's the man at stuff like that, so I let him.) 

"Which way should we go?"  He asked me.

"North!"  I pointed.

Joey hopped on his bike and lead the way.  He was going much, much faster than me.  After about half a mile, he noticed I was lagging behind (I like to look at the scenery!) so he stopped and waited for me.  "I think I'll let you go first," he told me, "That way I don't go off and leave you."

"Well...." I said, "I guess that's fine....But you'll have to keep up!"

And I shot off on Thunder as fast as my little legs would pedal me.  It took him a second, but he finally realized he was going to actually have to pedal fairly hard to keep up with me.  He had lost a lot of ground (because, let's face it, I'm usually not competitive with him...he's way more awesome than me.)  It was to his advantage that I had to stop at Northwest Highway so as to cross safely and not get smote by cars whizzing by.

"How...how fast were you going?"  He asked me.  "That was crazy."

"Oh...20 miles an hour,"  I said, looking down at my bike computer. Then, "Woah!  That's the fastest I've ever gone, and I wasn't even going downhill!  I'm awesome!"  I crowed.  (Spin class must really be working.)

"Yeah, I was really pushing hard to keep up with you," Joey said.

I wish I could tell you all that I maintained my awesome speed racer skills the entirety of the 8 mile ride...but I pretty much died at about 6 miles (the wind was at our faces the entire way back and somewhere between when we left our house and started riding bikes it got wicked strong) and Joey had to coax me into the parking lot with chants of "you can do it!" and "one more sprint!" and "you were so awesome earlier!"

Clearly I made it, but I'm way proud of myself for trouncing Joey, even if it is just that one time.  (I so rarely kick his bum that I have to celebrate it when I actually succeed.)  He's much more awesome than me in everything except...nuts, I can't think of anything.

3.1408

Today is National Pi Day.  It is also Einstein's birthday.  And National Towel Day.

"National Towel Day?!"  You ask, "What....what is that?"

Ahh, gentle reader, if you were but more familiar with the works of Douglas Adams (The guy who wrote Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and other sundry works) you too might know what National Towel Day is. Joey always quotes, "The galaxy is a dangerous place. If you want to survive, you've GOT to know where your towel is" when referring to National Towel Day.

All that being said, today is Joey's favorite day of, like, the entire calendar year.  He has this quirky thing with Pi, in high school he memorized the first hundred or so digits of Pi and has been known to recite them at random and ad nauseum.  So on National Pi Day Joey is always inspired to mathematical greatness.  He is proudly wearing his Pi shirt that bears the symbol of Pi which is made up of hundreds and hundreds of tiny white digits of Pi.

It is truly a shirt for nerds.

Additionally, Joey likes Einstein because he likes math.  He also thinks it's cool that Einstein was born on National Pi Day.  And that it is also National Towel Day.

Could there be a more perfect trifecta?  I ask you.

And so this morning Joey dressed himself in his Pi T-shirt and slung a brown towel over his left shoulder.  "It has to be worn this way," he told me, "It's the proper way."  He also wore pants.

Unfortunately, it turns out that today is not National Towel Day.  He is two months too early - it's is on May 25.  I'm not sure how or why he thought everything was on the same day, but poor, poor Joey.  His towel is now draped over the back of his desk chair and he is not wearing it again until May 25.

(He told me I could blog about this only if I blogged the entire story, which I believe I have done.  So I'm not getting in trouble for any of this, just FYI.)

So it's just National Pi Day and Einstein's birthday after all.  Alas, it's no longer the perfect date on the calendar.

Everybody get your towels ready for May 25, though, and be sure you wear them the correct way.

Cheetos

Joey had his nerd meeting last night. I wanted to go along particularly bad because there were Cheetos. Lots of them. A whole big dispenser of Cheetos and you could have as many as you wanted.

I really like Cheetos.

They are my favorite chips, but I never buy them because know that if I did buy them, I'd eat them. And then I'd have to buy new jeans.

So last night from about 6:00 to 6:30, our conversations sounded like this.

"Can I go to your Nerd meeting tonight? I want Cheetos."

"No, you can't. You have to meet the girls."

"But...I want Cheetos."

"Seriously, you can't come. You have to meet the girls."

"Oh. What about next month?"

"Um, let's see. Next month the Nerd meeting falls on the same day as your accountability meeting with the girls. But maybe in May."

"But...I can skip once, right? I could have Cheetos."

"You're the one telling Laura you're not there because you'd rather be eating Cheetos and making yourself sick than sharing your heart with them."

"OK, can do."

"I'll bring you back a baggie of Cheetos tonight, how is that?"

"I am so excited. Can you come home early so I can eat them?"

You know, it sounds really bad when I type it all out like that. But enough of all this. Joey went to his meeting and I met the girls for accountability. When I came home, I got everything all ready for going to work out at our 5:45 a.m. spin class we do on Fridays. I packed bags, made lunches, put water bottles in the freezer to cool and tidied up the kitchen.

Then I got in bed to read. Joey normally gets home about 11 or 11:30 because the Nerd meeting is up in Addison and they all go to dinner afterwards.

And so I read and read. I considered falling asleep but the thought of Cheetos was keeping me awake. My book was good too. At 11:00 I heard a key in the door and Joey come inside.

"Can I have the Cheetos?" I yelled from the bedroom. (The door was closed.)

"Hi to you too."

"Can I have them?"

"I left them in the car. I was going to give them to you in the morning..."

"Oh. Well, I stayed up so I could eat some...can you go get them please?"

(I'm not usually this bratty, people, At least I don't think so anyway.)

Shortly, Joey walked in with a baggie full of Cheetos.

"Thanks! My hero!" I crowed as I began munching on the Cheetos while still laying in bed.

"You're going to have to brush your teeth again," Joey informed me.

"I know." I said.

Henry sniffed around and found a stray Cheeto. He took it down to the end of the bed to munch it and, after eating half of the baggie's worth of Cheetos, I put mine down too. I brushed my teeth and then tried to fall asleep.

But the anticipation of the Cheetos combined with the strange chemicals in them made me wide awake. I lay there staring at the ceiling wishing I could fall asleep. Sometime after 12:00, I finally got my wish.

When the alarm went off at 5, I could not wake up. We shut off the alarms and managed to oversleep and not get up until 7:10 (we're supposed to leave at 7:30), so we had to get ready in record time. I was glad I had laid out everything the night before.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, I walked in the study to take Henry outside.

"Oh...no..." I said, looking at the floor. "Remember that Cheeto Henry got ahold of last night? He obviously threw it up sometime between last night and this morning. From the looks of this mess, it was more like last night."

"Gross." Joey said, coming to inspect.

"I'll clean it up, will you take him outside?" So I scrubbed frantically at the very large spot of goo on my carpet (serves me right) and, within 5 minutes, it looked good as new. (Thankfully. Otherwise our friends would never come over again.)

And so we left at 7:35 and walked to the car. Joey wearing carrying his backpack and me munching on the last of my Cheetos.

"I really like Cheetos," I told Joey. "Thanks for bringing them for me."

"That's not a very nutritious breakfast," he returned.

But it sure was delish. And that's why I never buy them. Can you imagine what my life would be like?

Look, Ma, New Eyes!

What y'all have been waiting for. (I'm sure...) It's the long-anticipated pictures of Joey and I in our new glasses! Except you'll have to wait on the sunglasses...they're still being made. They take like two weeks.


It was windy. And I was feeling shifty.



I told you it was windy.



Joey is worried you won't like his new glasses. But I like them; I think they are...Geek Chic.



He's tough and mean.




But this is how he looks most of the time



The sun was bright



Henry looks like a sassy snob, I think



And he just looks traumatized in this one, it's probably my favorite. Majorly windblown cheek.

Why Daylight Saving Time Freaks Me Out About Motherhood

I am not pregnant.  But being a woman (wait, do I count as a woman?) in her mid-twenties with a husband in the middle of seminary and no children yet, sometimes impending motherhood gets on the brain and then posts like these occur.

When it comes to Daylight Saving Time, I like to be Very Prepared.  I plan ahead and change all the clocks as soon as we're done with dinner the night before so that Joey and I can go to bed on the new time. It really feels much more restful to change the clocks in the early evening instead of just changing the alarms right before falling asleep.  But I digress. 

I get a little bit too into changing the time and, just to be sure that my clocks didn't eek forward a minute or two over the last 6 months and to double check that I changed them correctly, I like to take my cell phone around and sync all my clocks to that, but 5 minutes fast.  (Because it's horrible to be late!)

This time, though, I forgot the whole cell phone bit.  I changed all the clocks on Saturday evening and woke up before my alarm on Sunday morning.  I set about to baking 3 loaves of pumpkin bread and putting a roast in the crock pot while Joey lolled around in bed mostly sleeping but occasionally making little exclamations about how much he hated Daylight Saving Time and couldn't he please go back to sleep?

I sent Henry in to lick him awake.

Just as we were getting ready to leave for church and I was finishing applying my eyeliner, I remembered something.  "JOEY!  Can you go around with your cell phone and make sure all the clocks are set to exactly 5 minutes fast?"

"Um, sure," Joey said gamely and went to do exactly that.  "Everything is 5 minutes fast," he reported.  He's a very good sport for my neurotic Daylight Saving Time issues.  Actually he's a good sport for all of my issues.

But this makes me worried.

If I'm so freaked out about my clocks being synced to the cell phone (which gets its time pulled down from a satellite) and then being precisely 5 minutes fast...am I going to be one of those horrible moms that everyone gossips about who is like "Wash your hands before you even look at my child" or "Is that gift made from organic cotton?  If it's not organic cotton you're going to have to take it back because I don't want any toxic chemicals on my child" or "Please remove your shoes when you enter my house and don't speak.  Instead of talking, we will converse by writing on this paper with these soft, soundless markers; The Child is sleeping and I'd simply hate to wake her up."

Heaven preserve us all if I turn into that kind of mother.  (But I count on Laura to soundly kick me if anything like that begins to happen.)

The Jenna Wears Prada

"Our insurance covers a ton of money for glasses," I told Joey.

"Awesome. Schedule some appointments, I want to get prescription sunglasses."

And so I did. Today at 3:30 we found ourselves at the eye doctor getting retinal scans and reading from a chart of fuzzy letters. Then we were released into the eyeglasses room to select the perfect frames.

Hmm...if I have X amount of dollars and it's use it or lose it...I'm getting ridiculously expensive frames. I thought as I surveyed the selection in front of me. I stood in front of the Versace frames trying to decide if I liked any of them.

I didn't.

So I moved to the Coach section. (This seemed like a great solution to me because then they'd match my handbag.) I found a pair I liked and stuck it in my "save for later" pile and worked my way over to Burberry.

After exhausting the selection of the aforementioned plus Vera Wang, Candies and BCBG, I found myself drawn to Prada.

The Devil wears Prada... I thought, but decided I was willing to overlook that. (Don't be sad, Mom.) I picked out four pairs of flashy glasses and added them to my pile. My favorite pair was studded on the sides with black Swarovski crystals. And it cost half a Grand; I am not even kidding you.

"You'll be about...$120 over your limit once you add frames and the office visit," the Optician told me.

"Nuts." I sighed.

He gave me a figure I could work with and, bearing that in mind, I began winnowing out the $500 pairs of frames. It was a difficult process, but I was equal to the task. My final two were down to a pair of Coach frames and a pair of tortoise colored Prada frames.

Joey and I went back and forth for awhile, but finally settled on the Pradas. They look like this.
I'm not sure if I'm embarrassed or not about the fact that they say PRADA right on the side or not. I haven't decided yet. In any case, I spent all of my allowance for frames and lenses and had $50 left. Don't you think that was economical on my part?

My favorite Joey got a great pair of lightweight gunmetal-colored frames - not plastic this time! - and a very schnazzy pair of prescription Oakleys for running around outdoors, riding his bike and the like.

They'll be in on Wednesday. We'll take pictures with our new eyes when we get 'em.

Update on the keyboard situation

The squeaky keyboard was just replaced.  I feel so much more sane and stealthy now...NO ONE CAN HEAR MY TYPING!

When I was upstairs ten minutes ago I ran into the guy who is supposed to change out my keyboard. "WHERE is it?  I can't handle it anymore?" I begged.

"Oh, it'll be another 2-3 days," he replied.  He had ordered me a fancy ergonomic one.

"I can't...I can't wait that long.  Just give me something now."  (Looking back on it, that sounds like something a drug addict might say...)

"Well in that case I'll just give you something from the storage room. I'll bring it down after you leave later."

Really, that was all I wanted in the first place. 

"THANK you," I said with an exceptional amount of relief.

My desperation must have come across more strongly than I intended, because not a moment after I came back downstairs there he came with a new keyboard.

"This will tide you over until your new one comes in later in the week,"  he said with a pacifying smile.

"I don't even care if the ergonomic one never makes it in," I said with a sigh of relief as I sat down and began to type soundlessly.

Monday has just been saved!

The Squeaky Keyboard Gets Replaced

Somehow I wound up with a keyboard that squeaks when I type.  Not nice little newborn kitten type squeaks, but fingernails on the chalkboard type squeaks.  And just the ASDF side.  The JKL: side is just fine.

After two weeks of enduring the grating squeakishness of my keyboard, I couldn't take it anymore.  "Can anyone else but me hear that?!"  I wailed one afternoon.  To my surprise (and affirmation that I was not going crazy) two people said yes, they could and it was driving them nuts.

I immediately requested a new keyboard.  "I don't even care what kind it is," I said, "Just get me a new keyboard before I go stark raving mad!"  I really wanted one of those fancy ergonomic ones but decided, "If it takes extra time to get one of those in, skip it.  I just want one that's non-squeaky."

"We'll get you on on Monday or Tuesday," was my reply.

And so here it is.  Monday at 12:00 and I'm waiting for my keyboard replacement.  I'm starting to lose my patience, too, because it is BEYOND IRRITATING.  This Monday really doesn't have much to recommend itself.  I mean, check out its laundry list of things that stink about it:

• It's Daylight (Loser) Saving Time which means that I was unable to go to sleep at a rational hour last night because I wasn't tired, but was forced by my alarm clock to wake up at what was not two days ago 4:00 a.m!  And we didn't even wind up staying up, we went back to sleep.
  
• It's cloudy and dark and so I'm wondering where all the extra light I'm got up early for is hiding
• I feel guilty for skipping the gym this morning and am trying to resist the urge to drink a caffeinated soda
  
• My keyboard is still squeaking

I think I'm mentally fragile today.  But I will likely recover as soon as I see my new keyboard...

"You know," said Joey last night while we watched MacGyver, "I think it's likely that you were adopted."

"What?"  I said.

"Well, you are certainly a lot weirder than your siblings, and plus your name starts with 'J' and all of theirs start with 'A'."

"Oh," I replied, slightly wilty. "But I look like my mom."

"That's true," Joey said.

I will probably always be getting harassed about the fact that I am the only 'J' in a family of 'A's. 'Tis a rough life I lead.

Fire in the hole!

"I think I'll make mac & cheese with hot dogs in it for dinner tonight," Joey volunteered sweetly on the way home.

"Oh. That's very nice of you. But....the hot dogs give me a stomach ache, can we think of something else tonight?" We buy organic mac & cheese, but once you add the hot dogs...ugh. I can usually only handle Joey's special creation once a month, and then it pretty much has to be on the weekend.

"How about grilling out instead?" He suggested.

"That's a winner!" I said, and as soon as we got home I set out the hamburger patties I'd frozen last month. It was a beautiful evening, so we walked around the block with Henry before coming home and starting the coals.

While Joey fiddled with our Smokey Joe that we keep on the balcony, I cut up and steamed veggies to marinate and then grill. (We're really getting into grilled veggies and definitely plan to make them when my parents come down to visit in May.) I decided to experiment with a potato this time, so as I was scrubbing and slicing it I called "How's it coming out there?"

The delicious smell of Joey's charcoal was starting to waft into the kitchen. With the veggies on the stove, I set about toasting the buns (which were really freezer burned, but I have discovered that toasting them masks that)

"It's not going well. The charcoal got wet in the rain we had a couple days ago and it's not starting well."

Coulda fooled me, it smelled really good!

Joey walked through the house and came back with a paper REI bag which he began putting the inert coals in, then he re-stacked the charcoal chimney with dryer coals from the sack. Not taking any chances, he squired the evil lighter fluid (that stuff's toxic, you know!) onto the coals and they lit right up.

But then something red and glowing caught my eye. Something that was not on the grill or in the chimney.

"JOEY!" I shrieked, "The REI sack is on fire!"

He lifted his foot to stomp it out but, just then, something in the sack really caught fire and the flames began leaping up over the edge of the sack.

"We're going to burn down the apartment!" I wailed, and ran into the kitchen to fill up something with water to douse the potential blaze. When I returned to the balcony, the entire paper sack was consumed with fire and, somehow, Joey was holding it by its handles over the grill and away from his body. He set the sack on the grill and - POOF! - the flames shot up over the balcony walls and gray smoke billowed from the grill.

"We are so evicted..." I whimpered.

"Naah, we're fine." Joey insisted as the flames slowly began to die down. (When I say "die down" I mostly mean that they were no longer licking the balcony walls and shooting 3 feet in the air.)

Then I went back into the kitchen and discovered that I had, once again, forgotten to put water in the bottom of my pot for steaming vegetables and I'd very nearly created a fire of my own. I quickly added some water and the veggies began steaming like I had originally thought that they were.

Out on the balcony, Joey quickly got the coals going just right and, before I knew it, he had grilled the burgers, bacon and veggies and we were sitting down to eat.

Suffice it to say our house smells like smoke. Badly. So we left the windows cracked open to try to air it out, and now we're having sleet and freezing rain today, maybe even snow. Poor Henry is going to be a frozen pupsicle when we finally get home to warm things up!

Dinner, however, was delicious.

Poor Dad

This morning I had a revelation.

"Joey, maybe we should vote for Hillary Clinton tonight.  You know, just to mix it up a bit.  Keep the Democratic race viable for a little bit longer and all."

"Yeah, maybe..."  he was brushing his teeth.

We already know who we're going to vote for and, just in case you're wondering, it's NOT Hillary Clinton.  (shivers...)  But it might be kind of fun to vote for someone who creeps us out once in awhile.  I mean, it's not the general election or anything. 

PLUS I know it would really cheese off my Pops.  (I'm kind of curious to know if I'd be permanently out of the will or just mostly out of the will for something like that.)  As the family Problem Child I sometimes feel it is my duty to come up with bad stuff to do.

We've got a couple hours yet until we have to decide, but it's kind of tempting...

Snow In March

It snowed last night.  After a weekend of 75 degree weather, it snowed on Monday night; our first snow of the entire winter season! 

On our way home from our respective offices, I informed Joey that I would be putting on sweats, socks, and several shirts of varying thicknesses when we got home, regardless of the fact that Joey had invited his friend/coworker/boss over for dinner and to study.  I immediately headed to put on my warm comfies as soon as we got home.  Just as I finished straightening the color on my bright green "Keepin' It Rural" t-shirt (which was over my pink long-sleeved shirt and gray sweats) he came in looking for me. As soon as he saw me, he started laughing.

"That," I said, "Is not a nice thing to do."

"I totally did not expect you to be wearing that," he said sensitively.

"Well, I am."  I said, and flounced into the closet where I put on my pink shearling slippers.  "I'm extremely warm."

Joey was still snickering as I left the room and went to start making dinner in the kitchen.  Soon he came to his senses, turned up the heat and started a beautiful fire in the fireplace.

After baking some delicious cookies and watching an episode of MacGyver, we went to stand by the sliding glass door and look outside.

"Do you think that's snow?" I asked.

"Yes, it's snow."

"No, I don't think it is."  I replied.

"It's snow.  Can't you see it falling slowly?"

"No, there's no way that's snow....I think maybe it's sleet"  (Do you ever just feel like you have to disagree with everything someone else says?  It felt like one of those.)

We stood at the window staring out for some moments before Joey announced that we were going to put on our Columbia jackets (for the first time this year) and go outside for a walk.  He would brook no objections.  And so that is why at 9:45 p.m. yesterday Joey, Henry and I went for a walk.

"WOW!"  I shrieked as soon as I opened the door, "It's snowing!"

I thought I heard an "I told you so" from behind me, but I know my husband loves me and would never say such a thing.

The snow was drifting down in delicate, white flakes and melting the moment it touched the ground.

"I can't believe it's snowing!"  I shrieked again, putting my face up to the sky and letting the snow land on it and melt.

"You're acting like you've never seen snow before!"  Joey teased me.

"I haven't seen any here this year," I explained.  (The stuff in Iowa doesn't count since we don't get to live there anymore and it snows all the time in the winter.) 

Henry was decidedly unimpressed by the snow and the wet ground it created.  (But then he's spoiled and he smells like socks, so we don't really give his opinions much weight.)  We walked halfway around the parking lot before Joey decided it was OK to turn around.  The fire wasn't completely out in our fireplace, after all.

"I'm sure we'll have a snow day tomorrow," announced Joey as we climbed the stairs and shook the snow off our coats.

"Don't hold your breath, honey, it's not even sticking except to the rooftops."

"No, it will be super snowy and icy," he insisted.  "We'll be housebound and get to sleep in and loaf around all day."

Well, it was 35 when we woke up with nary a snowflake left on the ground, and is currently 48.6 out there...so now snow day for us.  But a very fun treat for the first week in March!

The Texas Primary - my public service announcement

Being politically minded and all, after months and months of waffling back and forth between candidates and parties I have finally made up my mind for whom I will vote tomorrow in the Texas primary.  Joey and I discussed it this morning and, conveniently, we have picked the same person.  (I wasn't quite sure what to do if we'd wound up with two different parties, but fortunately I don't have to worry about that now.)

And so, being a native Iowan, tomorrow I will cast my very first primary vote ever.  But for those of you Texans who are registered to vote and don't know where to go to do so, or who to vote for, check out the Secretary of State's page.  It has polling locations, a summary of what's on each party's ballot and a link to the Texas Democrats and Texas Republicans pages.

I like voting.

Laura's White Couch and the Chocolate Egg In My Pocket

On Saturday Laura had a Gilmore Girls Season 7 marathon.  I am not particularly familiar with all things Gilmore since I haven't really watched it much, but I was all by myself since Joey had his paintball game and so I decided that I would become a Gilmore Girls fan.  And so, beginning about 10:00 a.m., we watched and watched and watched TV.

Danny made some delicious pancakes with chocolate chips in them, Miriam made a fantastic fruit salad, and on the table there were millions of snacks.  By late afternoon everyone had stomach aches.

Laura made a yummy pizza for dinner around 7:00 and we munched as we watched our ninth straight hour of TV.  My eyes were getting dry and bloodshot and I was beginning to lose my cognitive reasoning ability.  And so that is why, as I stood up to get a napkin off the table, I grabbed 2 Dove Dark Chocolate eggs from the bowl on the table.  One in my mouth for now and one in my pocket for later.  My stomach hurt too badly to eat both.

So I settled in on couch, face down, and continued staring at the TV.  At 7:30 I remembered the egg in my pocket but thought I was still feeling to sick to eat it.  And then, not surprisingly, I forgot about it.

Three hours later at about 10:00 I got up to stretch my legs and use the bathroom.  I washed my hands and returned to the couch, flopping back down on my stomach.  I stretched my arms out in front of me and --

"OH MY GOSH!"  My index finger on my right hand was brown.

I looked around furtively to see if anyone had noticed.  I was super, super tired and couldn't imagine how in the world my entire finger had turned brown, but I wasn't liking my options.  I had washed my hands, right?  Suddenly I couldn't remember.

Cautiously, I sniffed my finger.

Chocolate.  My finger was somehow covered in melted chocolate.  I sprang up from Laura's lovely white couch and noticed that there was a large brown spot where I had formerly been lounging.

"What..."  I said, staring at my finger and the brown spot.  Where was this coming from? 

"Oh my gosh!"  Laura said as she noticed what I was looking at.

Then I remembed the chocolate egg I had put in my pocket and forgotten about.  I plied my right pocket open and, sure enough, it was full of oozy, melty dark chocolate.

"You have got to be kidding me..." I mumbled, surveying the damage.  The egg had melted so long ago that it had soaked through the front of my jeans and on to Laura's lovely white couch, not to mention gotten all over my index finger and, somehow, in my hair. 

I went to the bathroom and tried to dig as much chocolate out of my pocket as possible but, kids, I'll have you know that getting melted chocolate out of a deep pocket in a snuggish pair of jeans is not a walk in the park.  Plus I didn't want to waste an entire roll of Laura's toilet paper.  So I gave up after three rounds of trying to sop up what I could. 

Then I returned to the couch to survey the damage.  I was so tired and so traumatized about the chocolate in my pocket that was now on Laura's couch that I stood there trembling.  Finally forcing myself to at least make it look like I had it all pulled together, I asked Laura for a damp cloth and some soap so I could try to rectify the situation.

Several minutes of circular scrubbing later, there was only a faintish brown spot left on the cushion.  My pocket and my hair were another story, so I lay on my back for the next two hours smelling chocolate (and getting a headache from it) and tried desperately to keep my chocolaty pocket off the couch.  I succeeded, fortunately.

I forgot to try my Tide stick, though, and upon further reflection (and the fact that I am now awake) I am regretting that I did not use my Tide stick to finish off the job.  I bet I could get the rest of the brown out.  And I still haven't checked my jeans; I am unsure how the pocket came out of the laundry.  But I definitely sprayed it down good with stain remover.  Fingers are crossed.

Word to the wise:  Never put chocolate eggs in your pocket to save for later.