Hamster: $4.99
Hamster paraphernalia: $42.00
Providing my daughter with the learning experience of being solely responsible for taking care of a living thing smaller than herself: priceless
hamster dreams.
PinkGirl, snuggling with me this morning: “I had a really good sleep, did you?”
Me: “mmm hhmm. What did you dream about?”
PinkGirl: “Hamsters.”
Of course she did.
Two weeks ago, she was nagging asking us for a dog. I take full credit for the shift to hamsters. I am the master of distraction.
Me, to FirstHusband: “I’m the one who shifted PinkGirl from dogs to hamsters, right? That idea came at you, not from you…”
FirstHusband: “yeah.” (pause) “So, you know how the Marines fight?”
Me: “No.”
FirstHusband: “They take a little bit of territory and grow from there.”
Me: “Who are you talking about? Me? or the hamsters?”
FirstHusband: “my daughter.”
Pshh. She’s been growing her territory since the day she was born.
I think I’m going garage saling. Top on my list? Hamster habitat, hopefully with a silent wheel.
All hamster advice is actively welcomed and appreciated. We’ve been told that Teddy Bear hamsters are the most docile and friendly, that the colored fill stuff works just as well as pine shavings in the cage and that they are nocturnal.
fitness goals: March 2011
I’ve decided on my fitness goals for March:
1. Yoga/Strength Training: 3 hours per week.
2. Walking: 15% increase from February’s goal, average 2.3 miles per day, 71.3 miles total for the month.
3. BOSU pushups: average 10 per day, total 310.
4. 2 Minute Plank: 31 times – if I miss a day, I make it up.
5. 1 Minute Superman: 31 times – miss it, make it up.
Now that I’ve put this out here, there’s no turning back. I’ll be updating my Exercise Log and there’s a widget in the sidebar that shows my current summary.
Today, I walked 3 miles with my husband in approximately 48 minutes, did 10 BOSU PushUps in less than a minute and spent 2 minutes in a forearm plank. I’ve got to go do a 1 minute superman now.
Microactions have a cumulative effect – try some of your own and let me know how you’re doing!
you say tomato, I say tomahto.
PinkGirl, slumping down beside me on the love seat: (huge sigh)
Me: “What’s the matter?”
PinkGirl: “It appears my optimism is annoying.” (so her brother says)
Me: “Tell him it’s not annoying, it’s exasperating.”
PinkGirl: “No. I don’t want it to be anything except helpful.”
If you want to know what ferocious love sounds like, pick on my daughter.
PinkGirl has had a very tough week. To make a 6 month story short, she was bullied to a breaking point. Two weeping meltdowns of resigned hopelessness in two days, and I’m not exaggerating.
This afternoon, she brought a friend home with her and they were lounging on a blanket, on the banks of the pond behind our house. It was peaceful and lazy and I could hear her laughter from my rocking chair on the back porch.
and then.
3 teenage girls came into the clearing and one immediately yelled at PinkGirl and her friend: “Get lost! I HATE children!”
Immediately, with all the breath in my lungs, I yelled “THEN HIT THE ROAD!” It was instinctive. Not one intelligent thought preceded it. The words just flew out of my body.
[Let me just stop and say. WOW! What a difference a year of voice lessons makes! I didn’t even recognize the voice that came out of me. Deep. LOUD. It actually ECHOED.]
The MeanGirls couldn’t have been more stunned than if they had heard a gunshot. They stopped dead in their tracks and looked around. I was on my porch, still in my rocking chair. They had no idea where the big voice came from.
But.
They turned and walked away from PinkGirl and her friend. Silently.
So be forewarned. I have zero tolerance for ANYone being mean to PinkGirl right now. She has no resilience and she needs a few days or weeks to build it back up.
Don’t make me use my big voice.
seat warmer solidarity? nope.
PinkGirl: “It’s not FAIR!”
Me: “I know honey, I’m sorry.”
PinkGirl: “Well?”
Me: “What?”
FavoriteSon: “She wants you to turn off your seat warmer because she doesn’t have one.”
Me: “oh, honey, I’m sorry. That’s really not gonna happen.”
PinkGirl: “MO – OM!”
Me: “nope.”
handlebar or Groucho?
Background:
One of FavoriteSon’s most enjoyable pastimes is making jokes about my age.
One of my most enjoyable pastimes is making fun of the bare patches in his wannabe beard.
Me, talking about a new prescription cream for my face: “Supposedly, it will make me look more youthful.”
FavoriteSon: “Good luck with that.”
Me: “Handlebar or Groucho?”
FavoriteSon: “huh?”
Me: “What kind of Sharpie mustache do you want to see when you look in the mirror tomorrow morning, handlebar or Groucho?”
FavoriteSon: “Just fill it in right here” (motioning the middle of his upper lip)
Me: “No hitlers.”
FavoriteSon: “It’s not a hitler! It’s just filling in between what’s already there.”
Me: “You don’t have anything already there.”
7 Quick Takes 08.06.10
1. Whoever told PinkGirl about Steve Urkel – that was totally uncalled for. Very uncool.
oh. it must have been a Full House ratings crossover week. We watch DVR’d Full House (but fast forward through the DeGrassi promo commercials).
2. It seems that my freakish, overachiever, perfectionism has worked against me once again. I tried a little too hard to read the charts at the eye doctor, resulting in the doctor thinking I could see better than I really can, causing him to give me a lower than acceptable power for my contact lens readers. I can see to read on the computer and books and while I can see entree names on menus, the descriptions are blurry, along with the text on my phone, food nutrition labels and price tags. Reading newspaper print? Not happening. BUT – it is LIBERATING to read without being tethered to reading glasses, which I have been for the last 5 years.
I’ve watched FavoriteSon put in and take out his contact lenses so much over the last few years, the adjustment to contact lenses actually been no problem for me! I’ve tried my first pair for a week and I’m going back Monday, at which time I will tell the truth about the ease with which I can see stuff the doctor asks me to read. Hopefully, my second trial pair will be the perfect strength.
3. I’m kicking the crud out of our debt, one dollar at a time. Our church is offering a multi-week Dave Ramsey course called Financial Peace University, but amazingly, I got the entire course on 13 audio CDs for FREE on paperbackswap.com! Somebody listed it as a book and it only cost me TWO credits!!! Already listened to the first two CDs. Saved myself the course registration fee and all the time I would have spent driving to and from church for the classes. Not to mention the fact that I can get through the material faster than one lesson per week and I can listen anytime I want!
4. We’ve been asking God to bless our efforts to save money and pay off debt and we paid so much extra on our debt this month that our checking account was running dangerously low. I was worried about overdraft protection kicking in – which is kinda COUNTERproductive the whole debt reduction goal.
Then we found nearly $200 we forgot about from the used school uniform sale in May, FirstHusband found $20 on his nightstand and received a forgotten and unexpected travel reimbursement for $75!
In addition to all that, out of the blue, one of my clients had a nearly firm-wide, major network printer meltdown on Tuesday and I’ve spent the last three days on client site. Unexpected compensated work!
Thank you GOD!
5. Which do I like the least? Network printer work vs. dental work? hmmm. I’m not sure. But, it appears (knock on a printer) that the problem is solved, the solution is set up and tested and ready for firm-wide roll-out next week.
And it’s always tremendously affirming when, after I get stuck on a problem and the heavy tech hitting IT guys are called in, they get stuck in the same place I do. It’s also affirming when, after the IT guys are called in, they still want my help.
The firm administrator described my approach to problem solving and research as “tenacious.” Some might call it “annoying” or “exasperating.” It’s that freakish, overachiever, perfectionism thing again.
6. I finally lost my personal trainer. I knew it was coming. She’s been a law student and she finally graduated, took the bar and is now moving on to the next exciting stage in her life – sans me, I’m sad to say. (But EXTREMELY happy for her.) It’s an adjustment, working out with no accountability and I’m not entirely sure I won’t be hiring an new trainer, but for now, I’m doing . . . okay. I was up to three hours per week of strength training with her. Since we stopped meeting, the strength training has been inconsistent. I actually worked out MORE during the week of our cruise than I did any other week since she left me. I’ll really be able to tell after school starts and I get my routine back.
I worked out yesterday morning and this morning and while I really don’t like working out first thing in the morning, I can honestly say that every. single. minute. of the rest of these two days, I was SO glad my workout was already behind me.
7. PinkGirl is auditioning for a local production of Seussical the Musical tomorrow and parts will be announced on August 16 – NINE painfully long days later. If I were to receive a penny for every time I hear the questions “Mom, do you think I got in?” and “What part do you think I got?” during these next nine days, I would become a millionaire in less than one of them.
She wants every singe part. Kind of a problem.
Join in with your own 7 Quick Take Friday post at Conversion Diary hosted by Jennifer!
to infinity. and beyond!
This somewhat lazy summer morning, a sleepy PinkGirl and I are snuggling before our day gets rolling.
Me: “I love you.”
PinkGirl: “I love you more.”
Me, going straight for the win: “I love you to infinity.”
PinkGirl: “Well, I love you to Buzz Lightyear.”
Me: “Huh?”
PinkGirl: “Lightyears are bigger than infinity.”
I’m not gonna let her dad or her brother explain light years or infinity it to her.
This was also posted over at my family blog, Pragmatic Commotion.
best Father’s Day present? a nap.
I remember when the best Father’s Day present was a nap. oh. wait. that was TODAY’s present!