Twilighting
I just bought my tickets for the midnight showing of Twilight on Thursday, November 20. I can hardly contain my excitement. I just checked myself in the mirror and my eyes are all wild. Okay, okay, that’s because I started back on the Focalin. Still. I am giddy. I called my friend Melissa and told her I was getting our tickets. Woo hoo. Got tickets to Twilight. Hopefully there will be no teenagers there that night, since it’s a school night.
I am sure I’ll be high the whole day waiting for it. And then, within two hours, it will all be over. Kind of like the Morrissey concert, though that does live forever in my heart. And I can get the Twilight DVD.
Also, November is National Novel Writing Month. Join the challenge if you’re not a chicken.
Track 7
On the drive home from Cub Scouts tonight, my son and I had an interesting exchange. I had the Muse CD Black Holes and Revelations playing. We were on track seven, “Assassin.” My son, who’s eight, commented, “this sounds a lot like track seven on Radiohead’s In Rainbows CD. It has a similar melody.”
Why yes, my child, it does. This is a kid who thinks the White Stripes suck and gets annoyed with Arcade Fire (though he will handle large doses of Dream Theater with his dad before asking for something different). The only music we can seem to agree on is Muse and Radiohead. An odd circumstance when dealing with a third grader.
Y’know
The camping trip with the little girls was actual real fun. Watching some of the other Girl Scouts of similar ages bicker and tattle most of the time made me feel good that my girls don’t really do that. It helps that we’re a little group, I guess, but also the girls play together outside of Girl Scouts and I think that helps my cause.
I discovered yet another downside to being fat: those mummy sleeping bags that are so awesomely cozy do not fit around all of my body. From the boobs up I had to cover myself with a friend’s fleece blanket (a lovely goldfish print). This is sad because really more than anything else I can outside, I love camping. I realize the logical thing would be to take the weight off. I hope to, but I also think I need another sleeping bag. Surely there are other fat people who sleep in sleeping bags. I need to find out where these other fat people buy their sleeping bags. I wonder how I’ll find out. I can approach them at the outdoor store, I suppose, and say, “you’re about my size. Where do you get your sleeping bags?”
That may be too similar to, “you look about my wife’s size. Will you try this piece of lingerie on for me, please, so I can get an idea of how it will fit her?”
Sleeping bags, lingerie, it’s all nylon anyway.
Otherwise, I was very proud of my troop. They had planned the dinner and breakfast menus themselves, did a good portion of cleaning our cabin afterwards (vacuuming, sweeping, packing up their own stuff), and got along so well. Not like sisters, because sisters fight. More like cousins.
Now I’ve been home for 12 hours, showered, gone to the store, fixed supper, taken a short nap, spent some quality time with my husband, and done a little laundry. Time to settle into Breaking Dawn and see what kind of strange dreams I can have tonight. (Last week I had a really vivid dream starring one of my old friends from high school that I’d always been secretly in love with–the way I was secretly in love with all of my high school friends, honestly–and it went beyond interesting. A little awkward since we married folk sometimes like to pretend we’d never have a sex dream about someone besides our spouse.)
Also, Ben & Jerry’s Pumpkin Cheesecake ice cream is so wonderful. Had I not been missing my husband so badly lately, on any other night, I might have been able to skip over the horizontal fellowship and just stick with the ice cream. It’s really that good.
Wake Up and Count the Good Things
Wow. I really cannot describe the weird funk I am in. Part of the problem is that I haven’t been taking my medication like I should, so of course I’m not focusing. Part of the problem is that I am lazy. I also allow myself to feel defeated and deflated. I am happy with most of what I’ve done with my life, as far as staying home to be with my kids and even now, with them in school, being around to do stuff at school for their teachers and even have some social time to myself during the day (God knows I don’t get it at night–all mothers know that the job doesn’t end, even when dads seem to declare themselves off duty for the night). Okay, so most of my social time revolves around school stuff or scouts, too, but that’s okay. They’re people I like. I like spending my time with people who are dedicated to the same ideals I am.
But I have let myself get too fat. I can’t find outdoorsy clothing in my size in the stores. I have to order it. I can’t keep up like I want to. I have this private goal that involves leaving the continental united states and doing some exploring–and no, SSA, it has nothing to do with Sarah Palin! honestly–and I can’t do it at this weight. I don’t have the stamina to do the things I want to do.
I have been saying this for years and continue down the road to early morbidity.
This weekend I am taking my Girl Scouts camping. I will have to work hard to keep up. That’s fine. They will be understanding and cheer me on or something cute like that. But it shouldn’t be like that.
There are some things to be excited about, though.
- My husband has hinted that he’d like to take a few years off his current career and do something that I think is much more worthwhile, though the pay is a lot less. We’d have to save a lot, and that’s something we’ve gotten good at over the last few years.
- My younger daughter is riding to camp tomorrow with a friend of mine from high school. We rediscovered each other when our girls ended up in the same troop. Even though we went years without seeing each other, I love that our daughters play together. Someday maybe they’ll write melodramatic teenage poetry, too, like we did.
- One of the mothers coming on our camp out is also one of my closest friends, so I will get to spend more time with her.
- The Girl Scout troop seems to be falling into place, and if I could only get to where I was involved more in my troop than with the bigger picture, I’d be happier. Fortunately, all the people involved in the “bigger picture” where we do scouting are people worth spending time with.
- I’m also *this close* to having my substitute teaching license approved and going to orientation, so I will have a way to make a little money here and there when I want to work.
- My good friend Sarah is having a healthy baby girl soon, and we’ll hopefully get together before then.
- I have a short weekend with my mom coming up that I am so excited about. We don’t get time together any more, and I think I am going to surprise her with something luxurious. I know it won’t involve male strippers or fondue, but other than that, I have a lot to work with.
Okay, counting the good things helped me feel a little better. I am still buried beneath the laundry and need to clean my car out. The rain has let up so now might be a good time to abandon WordPress and Arcade Fire (have I ever told you how much I love my iPod?) and go do that.
Upheaval
Seems like lots of friends are dealing with big changes in family and health situations right now. I feel blessed to be in a stable situation, with improving health. Can’t say the same for my poor dog, who can hardly even walk down the hall without peeing all over herself now, but you know…
I have to say I’m feeling owned. It’s my fault, mostly. I do allow myself to get talked into doing things, even when I know better. It’s true that I like volunteering for things. That’s sort of my hobby, the way my husband builds, races, and rides bicycles. This is something in my personality that cannot be changed. I also like to read, and have been indulging myself in the guilty pleasures that are Stephenie Meyer’s books. If I had it my way, these would be the two things I’d do all the time. I don’t groan any more that I don’t have time for a hobby. I’m not the crafting type, though I’ve tried. I’m not athletic. So this is what I do.
But i have let it get out of control and need to gather myself. I’ve missed being involved in Cub Scouts with my son the last year and a half because Girl Scouts has taken over. I really wanted to be a troop leader and enjoy it, and I think I do a good job (now–I was not very effective my first year). But other responsibilities in that vein are taking over my life, only because I’m letting them. On top of being a sucker, I also am terrible at time management. I’m notorious for procrastination and it shows.
the Fog
I am still in a fog after that surgery. I totally blame the anesthesia. I can barely get up to get kids ready for school. The house is way worse than usual (notoriously bad housekeeper, remember?). My head aches cnostantly. Urgh. This is no way to live. And my son’s school was overtaken by crap–literally–and he is still out of school. At this moment I am watching him and his friend set up a war between Pokemon and Star Wars action figures and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Something has got to be done. We had a kid-free weekend and I slept a lot. And I want to keep sleeping. I think this is catch-up sleep fromt he last eight years.
Look Me Up
I am really excited because I’ve found a few old friends on Facebook. When I would find old friends on MySpace it was exciting for a minute, then I’d see how strange they’d become because people tend to put too much information on MySpace. Facebook allows you be a little more reserved.
Wednesday, wee hours of the morning, I was chatting with my friend Kirsty who lived near me in New Mexico in seventh grade. She was from South Africa by way of Australia, and then moved to New Zealand. It’s nice to reconnect with people, especially when you find that you can still have stuff to talk about.
Early this morning I located my friend Dannelle, also a buddy from New Mexico, different neighborhood. I’d caught up with her a few times since 1990, but not much. I found her on Facebook and it’s very low pressure. You can see what people want to tell you they’ve been up to and it leaves you free to ask questions, or not. Plus you get to see their cute kids.
One Day of Night / One Night of Day
On Tuesday, the gyne-magicians did their stuff. I got a dilation and currettage (that sounds so fancy, doesn’t it?), a hysteroscopy (where they use a scope to look around the uterus–what fun–like little gyno-pirates), and the NovaSure procedure. I started crying right as we entered the surgery center and didn’t stop until I passed out from whatever wonderful drug cocktail they gave me.
When I woke up, my tolerant and amused husband was by my side, letting me know that I had been talking about my penis.
I’m sore inside. My throat hurts. It feels like they gave me a breathing tube (“intubate her!”) but Ben doesn’t think that happened. Nobody indicated that anything went wrong, so it must be the anesthesia side effects.
I haven’t seen my kids since I sent them off to school Monday morning, but I heard them all getting in trouble with Daddy Monday night around supper time, so they must be fine.
Props to my girls who brought food-Kristy and Shelli, and cupcakes from Tiffany-and also to Melissa, Tiff, and Kristy for keeping various children after school so we could have an extra few hours of quiet around the house. And love to Coffee Rachel, Roxie, Kelly and Chuck, Lady Breland, McGraw, and all others who sent their prayers and good wishes and offers of assistance.
My daddy called me about an hour before we had to leave for the surgery center. He has always prayed with me before big things-and little things-and this was no different. I am really grateful for parents who consider this normal behavior, regardless of how much God hates me sometimes (and we know he does, I’m terrible to get along with).
I just finished watching “The Tao of Steve” and eating a couple of the mini-brownies Kristy brought, along with a glass of milk with ice (the best way to drink it). I am about to fall over asleep again but still need more Lortab because I am a hurtin’ fool.
Wednesday morning, Ben will attempt to get all three kids ready for school for the first time ever. I hate the saying, “bless his heart,” but really–bless it. I’m going to go snuggle in bed, fall back into a drug-induced sleep, and enjoy the fact that no one will wake me up at 6 am.
RecycleBank Meeting
I was able to cut out of a Girl Scout meeting early to attend the RecycleBank meeting at City Hall tonight. Accompanying me was my smart-ass eight-year-old son who was pretty disruptive (at least to me) the whole time. Still, I was impressed that he wanted to attend, and tonight before turning in he said, “thanks for taking me to the meeting thingy with you,” so it was good that he went.
I was a little naive. I try not to be. I assumed this program was already going to be implemented, but I got the impression that it’s still in the early planning phase. That was disappointing. Still, despite it essentially being a marketing tool for these companies who provide “rewards” (think Mycokerewards.com type stuff, plus some local coupons and such), it really does look like it could work.
Pickup woud be biweekly. We’d all get 95 gallon rolling containers–which would be nice to have for my household trash, by the way–that are coded for our address. Each pickup logs the households who participated, and then an average is taken from the tonnage collected. Someone complained about it not being fair for her neighbor who has a one-person household getting the same credit that her four-person household would get. I agree in principle. Still, this is recycling, not government. It doesn’t have to be just, but it does need to be fair. I think a tip-pool-type program is fine. It is a definite improvement over what we have now (for those outside of Helena, you should know we have to drive all our recyclables to the bins at the sports complex–bins that are often full, full, full!).
The program accepts metals (soda cans, fod cans), paper, newspaper, slick ads, junk mail, magazines, type 1 plastics, and type 2 plastics. The type 6 plastic cups that most Solo-brand and other disposable cups are not accepted there. The cost for breaking down those plastics is too high.
An example the guy from RecycleBank gave was Cherry HIll, NJ. Before the RecycleBank program, the average amount recycled per household per year was 610 lbs ()this was with the regular 18 gal bins, like Alabaster uses). Once RecycleBank was implemented there, the amount jumped to 1,008 lbs per household per year.
I am willing to give it a try. I don’t care that much about rewards. I feel very guilty every time I throw a can away but I cannot keep every recyclable item around my house any more. My garage is getting full. We have recyclable stuff everywhere. I just want to get it out of here, and I’m willing to pay to do it.
Check out Hal’s blog for more information. I don’t know when it will posted, but he was there taking video and stuff so he’ll have it up soon.
Also, here is a link to a recent article in Newsweek about RecycleBank. And here’s the RecycleBank official homepage.
Good Vibration – Slow Migration
On a whim, I decided to switch from Blogger to WordPress. Never had any trouble with Blogger. In fact, the new system is super-easy to use and looks good, too.
I think I was just jealous because of the WordCamp stuff.
It will take me a while to get the feel of WordPress. So be patient if my layout is wonky or something. I hope to be back to blogging in a few days.
Ms Bossy Pants 