A Day on the Lake

One of these beers is not like the other.....one of these beers has been in the sun too long.

*** If your brain does not think in song like mine does, that should have been sung to "One of these things is not like the other" a la Sesame Street circa 1988.***


ANYHOO, Kev and I went up to my parents' lake house for the first lake weekend of the summer this past weekend. It was rad. I loved the chance to get away with my family and my best guy in the midst of the final days of the school year and masters program. Most of the weekend was cool and crisp, but yesterday, just after my parents left, the sun came out to say hello. Kev and I decided to take the boat out. We had a fabulous day on the lake with lots of sunshine, moderate SPF and beers, and minimal stress. I finished the last 400 pages of a 461 page book (She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb for my chunkster challenge) and lounged in the sun. We ate a picnic lunch at sea and soaked up the rays of the second real day that has felt like summer since last October. All was well and good until......

We couldn't get the boat started to get back in and head back home. I'll spare you the grunting, swearing, sunburning and panic that ensued to say that I am proud that Kev and I managed the ordeal by making a plan, not screaming at each other, and getting the boat towed back to my parents' place. I will also say that I am glad to have such a strapping, able-bodied, tall husband that was able to stand near the shore and push the boat up to a stranger's dock so that we could tie it up and call for help. I will also tell you that I now have created a rule that I am not allowed on a boat without my phone again. Nothing like a broken boat and a sunburn to make you realize how much less of an adult you are than you thought you were. Good thing I had my partner in crime by my side.

Fill in the Blank Friday

Kev and I like to sing via gchat to each other when moments are boring at work. This is rare for me, but fun when it happens. See if you can name how many terrible top 40 songs we "sang" today.

me: FRIDAY FRIDAY
gotta get down on FRIDAY
Kevin: ha ha ha
ohhh YEAH
me: half an hour and I will be out like a trout
uns uns uns
Kevin: YEEEEAH BOY
me: I cannot wait
Kevin: Bump some Pitbull/TPain Hey baby
me: ooooh baby bay-bah
nananananaNAHna

We are pretty cool, I know. Wanna know what else is pretty cool? Fill in the blank Friday, brought to you by Lauren Link up or comment to play along :)

1. If I could get away somewhere for the weekend I would go to Napa Valley, California. It has to be warmer than 40 degrees there. I could drink outside with Kev-o, eat fancy shmancy foods, wear a sundress, and get to see lots of it with just one long weekend. It would be pretty bangin'. Although Kev and I are going up to the lake tomorrow-Monday, so that will be a pretty close second place.

2. Something I often rant about is how messy my house is. Although I must say I rarely feel moved to really do anything significant about it. I really need to do a little more each day so it doesn't pile up and leave me smothered by cat hair. Yeesh.

3. One item I need to have in my fridge at all time is salsa. I am salsa obsessed. I love to have a few different kinds so I can spice up my meal with whatever I'm in the mood for. I almost always have ranch as well. Lots of things (pretzels, pizza, turkey sandwiches with lettuce) taste better with ranch.

4. My "life-saving" product is Pond's makeup wipes. They smell fantastical and get all of your make up off at night. Boots No 7 also makes a great brand. For some reason, I'm so lazy that I see actually washing my face as a chore- these do great after workouts or before bed.

5. A friend is someone who loves you because you are a weirdo and not in spite of it. To quote CoCo Chanel "To be irreplaceable you have to be different." I love all my weirdo friends.

6. If I could write my own blank it would be Something that I was scared of as a kid that still makes me nervous is________________ For me, it's worms. No doubt, hands down. Those things are skeevy,

7. My favorite kind of art is a toss up between paintings and photography. So maybe something mixed-media would be my real favorite. I am in awe of painting, because I have no idea how to do it and most paintings are so alive, but I am fascinated by all kinds of photography.


Happy Friday! Partyin' Partyin' YEAH

Sweat Lessons

Today was a brutal day. Things were awful at work, and I came out in tears over a committee meeting in which things somehow went terribly wrong. I firmly believe that the worst feeling in the world is discussing a problem with people, and seeing a solution that would work, but being so flustered by the emotions of the situation that you can't really get your words out to help the situation. That's exactly what happened to me today and it was rad. Not.

Thankfully, I had registered for an hour long weight lifting circuit class with a dear friend who always gives me perspective. What I love about this class is that it moves quickly and has a lot of variety, so that the hour flies by. I also love that it leaves me sore the next day. I'm sort of a masochist when it comes to my workouts. If I'm not sore the next day, the whole workout seems a waste. Maybe that's why I run.

Anyways, I've had one foot off the workout and healthy living wagon for a while now, and some pounds I lost have slowly been finding me. My head was cloudy while the instructor was explaining the circuits, and I was a little sloppy. It was also an instructor I hadn't experienced before, and he was a bit stern. While it's too early to tell if I'll be sore tomorrow, I will say that being taught by somebody I didn't know at all who was none too kind left me with some lasting lessons that I would like to share with you all today. Namely:

1) If you really pay attention the first time, you will be shamed much less frequently later on when you have forgotten all the things that you were pretending to listen to earlier. Feigning interest does not actually mean you have absorbed the information you should have. And man, that makes me feel like an ass when that happens.

2) It really is true that when teaching somebody something new, your praise for them should outweigh your criticism. By the end of the lesson I was seriously craving some positive reinforcement. I was definitely the elephant in the room today, and I grew to dread each time the instructor walked by. My butt was too high while holding my plank pose, then it was too low. My feet were farther than shoulder width apart. Our "active rest" station was really a plank station in disguise. The resting should last one to two seconds max. Ack. I definitely need to remember to give my kids more love. It sucks when you try to do something new, and nobody sees how hard you are trying. Lesson learned, kindergarteners. I'm going to praise your pants off tomorrow.

3) It is a much better idea to maintain being in good shape than to take three weeks off due to bronchitis, then a cough, then remembering how much coughing sucked last week. Take it from me, people.

4) A good workout can make a bad day go away.

TGTIF people.

Fill in the Blank Friday

Usually on Fridays, I do Five Things Fridays, but I'm getting kind of sick of the routine. Not to mention all of my posts are incredibly random anyways. To change things up a bit, I decided to link up with Lauren and give you some randomness in a new and different way. So here you go! Want to play? Link it up!

1. People always tell me I look like........Minnie Driver. I think its the big boobs and big lips thing. Or the unruly mane of lion hair. Although, my dad swears I look like Angelina Jolie. If I was a parent, I don't know that I would admit that to myself. Maybe I need some tattoos.....

2. Friends don't let friends........moan about needing to lose weight if it's not really necessary. They also don't let friends say something negative about themselves without saying something positive. Friends also shouldn't let friends be picky eaters. Friends know how to talk friends into and out of bad decisions.

3. A sunny day is perfect for........reading outside, drinking outside, or taking pictures outside. A sunny day is also perfect for aww-ing over people's cute puppies or babies. Or both, apparently, if you live in my neighborhood. Some families just hog all the cuteness.

4. My favorite accessories are ........my wedding band and engagement ring. I love, love, love, love them. I also adore the Pandora bracelet that my mother-in-law got me and that my family keeps adding on to.

5. If I could afford it I would ..........take an international vacation every single year, forever. I'd make sure I got in 3-4 good airplane-worthy trips a year. I get stir-crazy if I don't have a trip planned.

6. The cure for boredom is to............... get out of your house. Go for a walk, bike-ride or drive. Take a book with you- if you can't find a cool place to go, you can go read in a park or a coffee shop.

7. I am currently "in like" with .... I'm slowly welcoming more salads in to my life. I've discovered that if I add a lot of stuff to them, that it doesn't taste like rabbit food. I'm also in like with some new running shorts I got from Target. They are tight like bike shorts but on the longer side to prevent chub-rub. I'm hoping I can grow to love them as I run more. I'm also currently only "in like" with my students. Usually I love them but they are getting the May crazies, and I'm losing my mind.

How would you answer these questions?

Disturbing Dreams

Hello long lost friends. I haven't posted in ten days, and have been getting many a text reminding me so, which makes me a very bad friend indeed. Kev and I have been living in chaos lately, what with the upcoming end of quarter in grad school, end of my school year, and general emergence back into the social scene after a long winter of hibernation. Things have been downright busy and disturbing around here, including our bedroom.

See? Yikes. Kev and I have ordered a new, big kid bedroom set, which comes tomorrow. However, because our new QUEEN-SIZED (!!!!) mattress arrived and my brother claimed our old bed for his college apartment, we are temporarily sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Like meth dealers. (Sorry if you are a meth dealer, but it's true. You all sleep on mattresses in your dens.)

Now, sleeping in such minimal conditions has its perks. When you lay down and gaze up at the ceiling, the fan sort of looks like a UFO.

(Sidenote: should I say "a UFO" or 'an UFO'? I know 'an' follows the vowel rule, but an UFO sounds awkward. Help.)

Also, from this vantage point your room looks ENORMOUS, since the door appears to be very, very far away.

Best of all, sleeping on the floor has induced strange, strange dreams in both Kev and I. The past few nights I have dreamt that I was a 50s housewife, wearing gloves in the supermarket. I have also dreamt that all the floors in our apartment were trampolines, which was a much more inspiring vision.

Kev's dream was much more fabulous. He dreamt that he surprised me with a baby seal, which he kept in our bathtub so that he could swim. Sadly, however, I was furious, because I felt that he was trying to torment me with heartbreak, since clearly a baby seal would grow out of the bathtub in a few short months. I feel that if this happened in real life, I would find a way to make it work, though. Baby seals are really freaking cute, and a big seal would be pretty rad. I also feel bad that Kev was picturing me mad in his dreams. Have we really been married so long that I nag him in his dreams instead of fill him with lust or joy? Sigh.

Thanks for tolerating the long delay, folks. I promise to get back to my regular 3-4 times a week schedule soon. In the mean time, what bizarre dreams have you had lately?

Fun-Sized

Sometimes, it's tough to be fun-sized.

For example, when you go to a favorite sushi place and realize that they've redone the bathrooms in a trendy unisex style that fails to differentiate for the petite woman.

How is a lady supposed to make sure no inappropriate cleavage is showing? Or check to make sure that she doesn't have bunches where there shouldn't be?

I guess the lady in question should return to her gal pal and consume as much wine as possible. At least, it worked for me.

Seis de Kevin

Today is a big day, people. See? Even Kev has been anxiously awaiting it.

Today is the date of birth of one Mr. Kevin G. Huzzah! Huzzah! Let the people exalt. However, Kev gets extremely concerned on this day, because he feels that cinco de mayo steals all of his birthday thunder. He frets about this rightfully. Yesterday, a student brought me homemade tamales for cinco de mayo. Today, nobody has brought me any food at work.

But, I digress.

Kev demands that his birthday be called 'seis de Kevin' and that it be celebrated in a style much grander than cinco de mayo. Therefore, I shall now make a list for you of six things I love about my husband, the birthday boy.

1) Kev makes anything fun. He is the best partner in crime a gal could ever have. We have laughed harder at the grocery store than more people probably do in a month. He also uses this fabulous sense of humor to humor my whims, which I appreciate. He even loves puns. Furthermore, Kev also has the best laugh ever. Really, it's more of a giggle, but that doesn't sound burly. So laugh it is. Even if I don't think something is funny, it's impossible to stay mad at him because of that laugh. Trust me, I've tried, too.

2) Kev has the widest range of interests of anyone I know. He's a rabid sports fan, he loves to cook, he is a talented artist, he reads avidly. He loves anything to do with history. I love that he's curious about the world, and can talk intelligently on such a wide array of topics.

3) I've seen the kid grow up. Because we've been friends since high school, I've seen many incarnations of this guy. He's made bad choices, good choices. He's been an athlete, a world traveler, a pre-med student, a business man, and so many things in between. It amazes me to think of how far he's come since we've met. It's even more amazing to think of how much more we're going to experience together and change together as the years pass. I feel privileged to have been a small part of that.

4) Kev pretends to hate our cats. Back when he used to contribute to this blog, he even write a whole post about our "hell spawn." However, he really, really, adores them. I am told they have epic chats in the morning before he goes to work. Kev always makes sure to buy them the good food, not the cheaper stuff I try to get away with. He worries about them when we go out of town. The old softy.

5) The man loves ice cream and is 'meh' about cake. As am I. I love that he sees the pure joy in making an unexpected stop for ice cream, and can appreciate the joy of sitting on the deck splitting a pint. Love, love, love. Believe it or not, it's a rare quality in a guy.

6) I don't know how to put this into words, but we're never bored together. We talk, we chill, we watch good (Mad Men) and terrible (Teen Mom) tv together. We read side by side. Having him in my life has made things better in every way possible. I'm blessed beyond words.

If you see KG today, be sure to give him a big hug and sing Happy Birthday really loud. He likes that. Happy 28th my dear!

Photography Update

I took this photo about a month ago, while I was on spring break. A friend and I headed downtown with our cameras and got artsy with our bad selves. Throughout the day I think my photography skills got better. I took a few duds, but a lot of shots I really liked. And that's when it hit me.

To be a better photographer, I need to PRACTICE. Duh. I constantly tell my students that if you want to learn to do something that is hard for you, you need to practice, practice, practice. That if something is hard, then you need to work harder to make it happen for you. And yet, I haven't quite been able to apply these lessons to my own photography.

I think the problem is time. I'm not making time to take the camera out and wander. I'm not making time to complete the MCP photo challenges that I wanted to do. Grad school and work are getting in my way. To top it all off, it's been raining, and really, there are only so many things you can photograph in your home. Especially if you only have two crotchety cats rather than cute babies or something. Maybe I'll get really good at self-portraits.

So I ask you photo people out there: what websites/tutorials/books helped you unleash your inner shutterbug? Help!