The ladies at our office decided to have a weight loss contest. A mass message was sent out to the 50 something people I work with that said,
"BIGGEST LOOSER CONTEST: Sign up for the Biggest Looser Contest to see who can loose the most weight!"
I don't know why things like this make me crazy but they do. I didn't say anything when the inital message was sent, but after two reminders about the "Biggest Looser" Contest, I lost it and sent the following message to the sender:
"FYI - screws are loose. you LOSE weight"
She called me, laughing, to say that she didn't realize the mistake and she would be sure to correct it in the next email. Later that week, we got another reminder about the contest:
"BIGGEST LOSER CONTEST: Starts Monday. Please advice me if you will be participating."
Sigh.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Round Brush Trauma
I'm having a hard time concentrating at work today. I'm thinking about the new round brush I bought. I have tentatively starting using the round brush again after 25 year break.
When I was six the round brush beckoned to my long golden hair, just begging me to use it. I obliged and began happily brushing, curling and twisting my hair around the round brush until it was hopelessly tangled. I tugged and tugged but couldn't get it loose. With frustrated tears I started yelling for my mother. She didn't respond immediately and being the impatient type, I reached for the scissors and began cutting. My poor mom walked in when I was about halfway through my impromptu haircut. The look on her face was sheer horror. "What have you done?!?", she cried. There I stood, beet red, scissors in my wanting desperately to have the round brush out, OUT of my hair. I was marched to the beauty salon where i got a very cute boy cut. My mother cried.
As you can imagine, I was traumatized by this experience and steered clear of the round brush.
Occasionally, I would see my friends with lovely, volumized, hair and ask, "How do you DO that?" Of course the answer would be, "Oh, you know, with a round brush." I felt defeated by their answer. I could never use a round brush. Just the thought of it scared the heck outta me. I would imagine something like this:
But now that I am 31 I figured it was time to grow up and give it another shot. I realized I never properly learned how to use a round brush. Thanks to YouTube, one can learn pretty much anything these days.
Some of my new favorite hairstyles are coming from www.twitter.com/LolaMarie8 - I suggest you check her out if you're looking to update your 'do. Thanks to her I am also re-visiting the world of Velcro rollers and I am traumatized no more!
When I was six the round brush beckoned to my long golden hair, just begging me to use it. I obliged and began happily brushing, curling and twisting my hair around the round brush until it was hopelessly tangled. I tugged and tugged but couldn't get it loose. With frustrated tears I started yelling for my mother. She didn't respond immediately and being the impatient type, I reached for the scissors and began cutting. My poor mom walked in when I was about halfway through my impromptu haircut. The look on her face was sheer horror. "What have you done?!?", she cried. There I stood, beet red, scissors in my wanting desperately to have the round brush out, OUT of my hair. I was marched to the beauty salon where i got a very cute boy cut. My mother cried.
As you can imagine, I was traumatized by this experience and steered clear of the round brush.
Occasionally, I would see my friends with lovely, volumized, hair and ask, "How do you DO that?" Of course the answer would be, "Oh, you know, with a round brush." I felt defeated by their answer. I could never use a round brush. Just the thought of it scared the heck outta me. I would imagine something like this:
Some of my new favorite hairstyles are coming from www.twitter.com/LolaMarie8 - I suggest you check her out if you're looking to update your 'do. Thanks to her I am also re-visiting the world of Velcro rollers and I am traumatized no more!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Lessons Learned at 31
My 31st birthday was yesterday. Here is what I've learned to date:
1) At this point getting older is not so bad. I realize I'm not a 21 year old hottie anymore (not that i ever was really) but there are advantages to age. I am learning to accept who I am and try to make that person better each day.
2) You should never underestimate the love you get from an animal. Sure we are probably selfish to some extent for domesticating creatures, but when I walk in the door and see two wagging tails my mood is instantly transformed. Nothing can actually be that bad.
3) Friends come and go. Some you have for a lifetime and some are fair weather. Often those people you think are good friends are not and you have to learn that lesson the hard way. Friendship is not a one way street. Put forth the effort and be thankful for the beautiful people who return it.
4) Family is precious. My dad makes me crazy. He can't hear, he doesn't take care of himself and he is super critical, yet he is one of the best men I know and did the best job possible raising a daughter on his own. Same goes for my grandparents; they are good people who have spent their lives trying to be good citizens of the world and good grandparents to my brother and I. My grandmother is one of the strongest people I know and I hope to have that kind of influence on my family one day.
5) Laugh as much as you can. It feels good.
6) You can't help who you love. I have tried before to love someone who was not for me and it didn't work. People love who they love - regardless of who their friends or family like or prefer. People should be with the person who makes them smile every day. I'm with someone who makes me laugh even when I'm furious. I try to be mad at him but he makes me laugh so hard I have to walk away to maintain my anger. In the end he wins because smiling, laughing at him or at myself, is what keeps me sane in this crazy world.
7) No matter how old I get, I will continue to miss my mom. Its been 21 years, yet everyday, I wish she were here.
8) You are never too old to learn something new. This year, I have learned (almost accidentally) to grow herbs and peppers. I also learned how to pickle. I've traveled around the world but it doesn't take world travel to learn new things. You can learn valuable lessons from the best place - your own back yard. Just like Dorothy.
9) Just because things didn't work out like you planned doesn't mean they haven't worked out.
10) What we do here on earth matters.
11) You can't have negative people in your life if you want to be happy. Some people serve no other purpose except to transfer negative energy onto other people. I have learned not to question why but instead to just accept and keep my distance from these types.
12) Part of me still subscribes to the theory "I can sleep when I die" - the other part of me wants more rest. I'm working on a happy medium.
13) I have not found my lifelong career. I like my job OK but there are a lot of other things I want to do.
14) I need to get more exercise and drink less. These are just facts if I want to live a healthy life.
15) Be thankful everyday. I have been very fortunate to have a lot of good things happen to me and I feel that the best is yet to come.
I realize that someday (which will feel not so much like someday but more like it just happened) I will wake up and be much older than I am now. I will wonder where the time has gone. I will have lost and gained friends. I will have (hopefully) had a family of my own. I will marvel at new found technology. I will be nostalgic for things like stamps and thank you cards. I will still miss my mother. I will have new pets that are not quite as good as the ones I have now. I will wish for the youth of 31. But my hope is that, at whatever age I find myself, I will always be able to find enough joy to laugh, to forgive and to love and appreciate those around me.
1) At this point getting older is not so bad. I realize I'm not a 21 year old hottie anymore (not that i ever was really) but there are advantages to age. I am learning to accept who I am and try to make that person better each day.
2) You should never underestimate the love you get from an animal. Sure we are probably selfish to some extent for domesticating creatures, but when I walk in the door and see two wagging tails my mood is instantly transformed. Nothing can actually be that bad.
3) Friends come and go. Some you have for a lifetime and some are fair weather. Often those people you think are good friends are not and you have to learn that lesson the hard way. Friendship is not a one way street. Put forth the effort and be thankful for the beautiful people who return it.
4) Family is precious. My dad makes me crazy. He can't hear, he doesn't take care of himself and he is super critical, yet he is one of the best men I know and did the best job possible raising a daughter on his own. Same goes for my grandparents; they are good people who have spent their lives trying to be good citizens of the world and good grandparents to my brother and I. My grandmother is one of the strongest people I know and I hope to have that kind of influence on my family one day.
5) Laugh as much as you can. It feels good.
6) You can't help who you love. I have tried before to love someone who was not for me and it didn't work. People love who they love - regardless of who their friends or family like or prefer. People should be with the person who makes them smile every day. I'm with someone who makes me laugh even when I'm furious. I try to be mad at him but he makes me laugh so hard I have to walk away to maintain my anger. In the end he wins because smiling, laughing at him or at myself, is what keeps me sane in this crazy world.
7) No matter how old I get, I will continue to miss my mom. Its been 21 years, yet everyday, I wish she were here.
8) You are never too old to learn something new. This year, I have learned (almost accidentally) to grow herbs and peppers. I also learned how to pickle. I've traveled around the world but it doesn't take world travel to learn new things. You can learn valuable lessons from the best place - your own back yard. Just like Dorothy.
9) Just because things didn't work out like you planned doesn't mean they haven't worked out.
10) What we do here on earth matters.
11) You can't have negative people in your life if you want to be happy. Some people serve no other purpose except to transfer negative energy onto other people. I have learned not to question why but instead to just accept and keep my distance from these types.
12) Part of me still subscribes to the theory "I can sleep when I die" - the other part of me wants more rest. I'm working on a happy medium.
13) I have not found my lifelong career. I like my job OK but there are a lot of other things I want to do.
14) I need to get more exercise and drink less. These are just facts if I want to live a healthy life.
15) Be thankful everyday. I have been very fortunate to have a lot of good things happen to me and I feel that the best is yet to come.
I realize that someday (which will feel not so much like someday but more like it just happened) I will wake up and be much older than I am now. I will wonder where the time has gone. I will have lost and gained friends. I will have (hopefully) had a family of my own. I will marvel at new found technology. I will be nostalgic for things like stamps and thank you cards. I will still miss my mother. I will have new pets that are not quite as good as the ones I have now. I will wish for the youth of 31. But my hope is that, at whatever age I find myself, I will always be able to find enough joy to laugh, to forgive and to love and appreciate those around me.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Gardening and Pickling
I recently started a foray into pickling. This comes after my limited success with gardening of sorts. I thought for a long time I couldn't grow anything. I killed aloe vera, which I've been told is one of the easiest plants to grow. I convinced myself I didn't have a green thumb.
I don't know why I wanted to try again, but I have always wanted a pepper plant, so I gave it a shot. I bought the little guy at Lowe's and put him on my patio. Immediately he produced two peppers, but then did little else. I'm pretty sure I did everything one could do wrong to my pepper plant, including leaving the poor thing out during the most significant snow Texas has see in several years. I apologized to him profusely, begging it not to die. To my excitement/astonishment, he lived. This spring he produced about 5 peppers, all of them MUCH hotter than the two initial peppers. I'm convinced he was mad at me for the snowstorm incident.
After the success of my pepper plant, I started some herbs, including basil which I grew from the seed. I now have chive, mint, my basil and yes, even an aloe vera plant (which I'm happy to say is doing very well).
So now I am on to pickling. I ran across some fresh okra at central market one day and thought "I want to pickle that." who knows why? It seemed like a good idea. I bought the okra and some pickling spice and went home very cheery. Too bad I forgot I didn't have any mason jars. Bummer.
I located some jars, lids and rings the next day. I got a recipe off the Internet and set to work. For a novice, pickling is a lot of work. You have to sterilize everything and since I was paranoid, I think I sterilized everything twice. I did a lot of things wrong. I ran out of vinegar half-way through, as well as salt (not to mention my salt was the wrong kind). I didn't pack the jars full enough. I forgot to get garlic. My jars were too big. Not to mention the fact that it took me several hours to finish the whole ordeal. I got through around 1 am. But in the end I had 4 large jars of pickled okra.
Recently I went to my grandmothers house and talked to her about my pickling adventures. I should have talked to her before I started. She gave me an old pickling/canning cookbook that had tons of recipes, including some of her own handwritten ones. She gave me a ton of jars and rings. We spent quite a bit of time bonding over what you should/can/don't have to do when pickling. I got a ton of info from her. My grandmother and I didn't always get along but we have become much closer in recent years. She is kind of a distant woman, but she lights up when we have a common interest. My mother canned and pickled also. In a weird way, I feel closer to both of them for taking up this little hobby.
So tonight, I am on to pickling, well, pickles actually. I guess technically cucumbers. I will do some more okra also. I went a little crazy at the farmer's market on Sunday. At some point tomorrow, I will probably call my grandmother to talk about it and ask some question about what I think I did wrong. She will be reassuring but I won't be convinced until I taste the results for myself....a month or so from now.
I don't know why I wanted to try again, but I have always wanted a pepper plant, so I gave it a shot. I bought the little guy at Lowe's and put him on my patio. Immediately he produced two peppers, but then did little else. I'm pretty sure I did everything one could do wrong to my pepper plant, including leaving the poor thing out during the most significant snow Texas has see in several years. I apologized to him profusely, begging it not to die. To my excitement/astonishment, he lived. This spring he produced about 5 peppers, all of them MUCH hotter than the two initial peppers. I'm convinced he was mad at me for the snowstorm incident.
After the success of my pepper plant, I started some herbs, including basil which I grew from the seed. I now have chive, mint, my basil and yes, even an aloe vera plant (which I'm happy to say is doing very well).
So now I am on to pickling. I ran across some fresh okra at central market one day and thought "I want to pickle that." who knows why? It seemed like a good idea. I bought the okra and some pickling spice and went home very cheery. Too bad I forgot I didn't have any mason jars. Bummer.
I located some jars, lids and rings the next day. I got a recipe off the Internet and set to work. For a novice, pickling is a lot of work. You have to sterilize everything and since I was paranoid, I think I sterilized everything twice. I did a lot of things wrong. I ran out of vinegar half-way through, as well as salt (not to mention my salt was the wrong kind). I didn't pack the jars full enough. I forgot to get garlic. My jars were too big. Not to mention the fact that it took me several hours to finish the whole ordeal. I got through around 1 am. But in the end I had 4 large jars of pickled okra.
Recently I went to my grandmothers house and talked to her about my pickling adventures. I should have talked to her before I started. She gave me an old pickling/canning cookbook that had tons of recipes, including some of her own handwritten ones. She gave me a ton of jars and rings. We spent quite a bit of time bonding over what you should/can/don't have to do when pickling. I got a ton of info from her. My grandmother and I didn't always get along but we have become much closer in recent years. She is kind of a distant woman, but she lights up when we have a common interest. My mother canned and pickled also. In a weird way, I feel closer to both of them for taking up this little hobby.
So tonight, I am on to pickling, well, pickles actually. I guess technically cucumbers. I will do some more okra also. I went a little crazy at the farmer's market on Sunday. At some point tomorrow, I will probably call my grandmother to talk about it and ask some question about what I think I did wrong. She will be reassuring but I won't be convinced until I taste the results for myself....a month or so from now.
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