Wish List

The ice storm combined with all of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania descending on Dallas for the Super Bowl totally screwed up my life yesterday.  While I had visions of hiding from the ice, sipping hot chocolate and playing games with my family, all manner of other mess collaborated to sabotage my "vacation day" (as I spent one of them trying to avoid the freaking roads) and keep me in a constant state of panic/worry/anger/fear/tears.

Apparently, for a bunch of reasons that didn't translate into anything sensible to me, there was not enough electricity to go around yesterday.  So, the great state of Texas initiated rolling blackouts.  They were supposed to last for 15-45 minutes (unless you were at Cowboys' Stadium, where you got a pass on the black-out, but if you were in a hospital giving birth to a newborn, or on a Dart train trying to stay off the icy roads - no such luck - I digress).  I must admit, the first black-out lasted 45 minutes, and my power was restored as promised........for, quite literally, 30 seconds.  It was then shut off again and remained off for approximately 5.5 hours.

The very last thing I wanted to do was load Silas into a car and drive anywhere, but my choices were getting down to risking the mile drive to a friends' or exposing him to increasingly frigid temperatures.  So, bundle up and load up we did.  We spent the black out chatting with friends and watching the kids play until we received word that our side of town was up and running once more.  The day was back on track. 

Or so I thought.  While I was in the middle of trying to protect my child from this freakishly-annoying storm, a crisis was a-brewin' at work.  Upon my return to our re-electrified home, I was able to check emails, and I was alerted to the crisis.  As I had already spent enough time on the roads to know I had no desire to drive all the way to the office, I tried to delay taking action, shut off my computer, took a nap, awoke to check my emails and learned that my effort to delay was rebuffed.

Having no other options, back out on the ice we went - stopping to drop Silas off so as not to subject him to our near run-in with a retaining wall.

When all was said and done, we made it back home at 11:15 last night, and Silas practically begged us to put him to bed.  

My birthday is fast approaching, and I am putting lottery tickets and a trip to some place tropical on my wish list.  Feel free to combine forces to make it happen.

Step three and other generally fabulous behavior

Shockingly - it looks like I'm actually on my way to a lifestyle change.  Yesterday, after a rough start to the morning, I spent several hours catching up laundry and scrubbing my bathtub and mopping and doing all the things I had put on Michael's to-do list (which I did because he spent two nights last week up all night with sick babies without once waking me up to even let me know babies were sick, and I had monumental guilt over the fact that I would have totally woken him up -frantic and in a puddle of tears- if the situation was reversed).  I controlled my portions and drank fewer cokes and was just generally fabulous.  Today, I'm drinking water and wearing make-up and a cute dress and boots. 

Also, you know how I've been trying to become a grown up since I had a kid and it seems reasonable to have a grown up around the house?  Yes, well, step three?  Complete.

Someone officially has money put back for retirement and had a phone call Friday with a person who used words like "mutual fund" and "long term growth" (and told me that I'm really young, which is always pleasant.....unless you're 12 and begging to do something your parents don't want you to do).

Now, if I could just stop accidentally dying my hair unnatural colors...

ACTUAL PROGRESS!

Attention, please.  It took me one month and nineteen days, but I have actual progress to report.  Yesterday, I drank 64 ounces of water, ate a salad for dinner and did thirty minutes of cardio.  I know that's what people are supposed to do every day, but sadly, my managing to do the bare minimum in an effort to be healthy makes me feel like someone should give me a gold star or an achievement certificate.  

It's sort of like when men take out the trash or put their dirty clothes in the hamper and go out of their way to point it out as an accomplishment and women roll their eyes and think, way to go, Jackass.  Let's see if you can string several of those "accomplishments" together and make a lifestyle change.  Wait, no, it's just like that.  Let's see if I can string a few days of this together, shall we?

Update: Crap, I forgot to mention that I have also worn make up to work two days in a row, and my hair is not in a ponytail today.  Gold star yet?  No?  More stuff I should have just been doing anyway?  Right.  You're right.  Thanks for keeping me from gettin' the big head.

Do-over post

Right, that last one was all mopey and sad.  I'm not sure that this one will be any better, but I'll put some cute pictures of Silas on the end, and we can all smile and pretend it never happened.

I've been having to talk to many highly-educated people lately for work, and I'm quite certain they all think I'm a moron.  Frankly, I sound like a bumbling, stumbling idiot on the phone.  Last week, I was leaving a voicemail for business-related purposes, and the voicemail lady interrupted to inform me that I had blathered on long enough and that I was done now.....but I wasn't done.....I still had to leave my call back number.

Writing is the only means I have of effectively communicating with the outside world.  I'm a rock star in emails.......because I spend forty-five minutes composing them and reworking them until they make sense.  No such second chances on the phone.  

God forbid the person on the other end ask me a question.  Even if I know exactly what I'm talking about, my brain and my mouth never are on quite the same page.  My brain is BFFs with my fingers.  They spend all day writing emails and text messages together.  So, when my mouth tries to get involved, it's just the awkward outsider trying desperately to fit in and failing miserably.

Professional help seems appropriate, and so I've been thinking of auditing an oral communications class at my local community college, but I'm lazy, so odds are, I will just continue to sound like an idiot on the phone for the rest of my life.

Now, as promised:

Last Night's Faux-hawk

The crash that came after the double nap refusal

Improvisation - when you don't know what you're actually supposed to do with a toy, make it a stool

Silas was up all night puking the night before last.  Text message that accompanied this picture: "He knows how to suck it up and go to work."

(Not so) Rhetorical Question

When I was younger, I got up (nearly) every morning and put on a cute outfit, did my hair, applied make-up and wore accessories.  I spent gobs of money (to the ever-increasing horror of my then-husband) on clothes, make-up, shoes, jewelry, scarves, hair accessories, pedicures, acrylic nails, etc.  My appearance was a priority even when I was going to the grocery store.  That's not to say I looked like a rock star every day, but I cared 95% of the time.

I went through a slump after I had (and lost) Anabel, but I rebounded after a while and got back into the routine of making an effort with my appearance.  There were fewer accessories, but there was still make-up and cute shoes and cute haircuts with highlights and a gym membership.

When I got pregnant with Silas, I started slipping again.  I gave up on my hair and forgot I even had accessories and told myself that I was supposed to be gaining weight because I was pregnant (although my doctor seemed alarmed at the amount), but I'd still take my make-up with me to work and apply it.  I still cared about shoes and clothes and told myself that it was just being pregnant and that I'd get back to being myself after I had the baby.

Well, now we're at today, and Silas is 16 months old, and I cannot even remember the last time I wore make-up.  For whatever reason, I've completely given up trying to look presentable.  I'm the definition of the "before" picture, and I don't even know where to start.

Putting together an outfit has become foreign to me.  My mom and my aunt pick out and purchase all of my clothing.  I got my hair cut a month ago, and I've only fixed it twice. I ran out of mousse and gel and said "eff it, a ponytail it is" because scrunching it into waves was my last-ditch effort of dealing with it (God only knows where my flat-iron has gotten off to).  

This seems to happen to all the women on those make over shows (the ones I've always been, like, "what? you're so cute...how could you let yourself go like that???") after they have kids.  However, I have plenty of friends with kids who still look adorable all the time.  So, what's the deal with the rest of us?  Clearly, it's possible to do it because many people do it.  

How does someone go from being borderline-obsessed with her appearance to "eff it.  I give up."?

The End (because I'm too lazy to wrap it up appropriately).

Slam Dunk

My brain is barely functioning because it is using all of its power to keep me upright.  I'm at my job, and the thought of doing the simplest task - like responding to an email - is overwhelming me.  What I'm trying to say is: I feel like crap.  So, enjoy this cute video of Silas playing hoops.

Update: The video is only 35 seconds.  I hate dealing with long videos embedded on people's blogs too.

Unanswered Prayers

Before I had Silas, my version of running away to join the circus was to run away and work on a cruise ship or wait tables at a beach-side cafe or run a charter fishing boat....basically just anything near the water requiring very little thought.  There were no kids to worry about, so living cheap by entertaining myself laying in the sun, drinking margaritas sounded quite appealing.

Well, now I'm happy I got all pregnant instead.  Apparently, there was a danger of me being sucked into a life of crime: News story sent to me by co-worker who keeps up with the news.