Mid-Year Resolution

Yes, I know I posted like 3 hours ago. I had an epiphany. OK, not an epiphany. I was reading some "Member Lifesavers" over on workitmom.com and one of them was someone's New Year's resolution to keep her kitchen island free of clutter.

Well, it doesn't translate directly because my whole kitchen is roughly the size of most people's kitchen islands, but I would like to keep my dining room table (also used as a dumping ground, craft space, and food prep area) free of clutter. Starting today and lasting until the end of 2010 (and hopefully beyond that). I will get control of that space.

Also, what was that you said about "why are you going to workitmom.com when you have no children?" I like to think it's because I am constantly behind, and listening to the stories of women who have children to care for as well as themselves makes me feel better. Maybe even vice versa? I mean, I live alone and I can't stay on top of my laundry and dishes. How can they expect to when they're also caring for children?

The Good and the Bad

Good: The Commish is now available on Netflix on Demand! I love the Commish! I haven't seen it in about 15 years, so I wonder how it will hold up.

Bad: Yesterday I put on an outfit I hadn't worn in a while (grey skirt, green top) and when I got to work, I realized I looked terrible! There was absolutely nothing attractive about that outfit, but...

Good: I think the reason it looked so bad is because it was TOO BIG. I noticed my coat buttons more easily now, and I think perhaps I am losing weight because...

Good and Bad: I gave up desserts and fast food for Lent. Oy, there have been times when it has been super hard. But, I keep telling myself it's not for very long, and it's really two things I should have done a long time ago. Instead of eating steak McSkillet burritos every morning, I'm eating oatmeal. Instead of getting Taco Bell before (and maybe after, too) work on the weekends, I'm eating things from home, like scrambled eggs and leftovers.

Good: My outfit today is much cuter than my outfit yesterday, and I feel more confident in it.

Bad: I've been having some pretty severe back pain lately, mostly in the middle of the night. I think there are probably several factors contributing to it, but most notably the weight of my purse and the chair I sit slumped in to watch TV. Since I should really be folding laundry and tidying my living room while watching TV, I guess I'll try to make that minor change first. The thing is, I could definitely use a smaller purse. I carry a Coach (fancy lady alert!) messenger bag, which is beautiful, but very, very heavy when empty. And I load it up with my wallet (which probably weighs 10 pounds on its own), various accoutrements, and reading material. I need to work out a better system. One that does NOT involve a rolling bag, as those things are hell to take on the Metro.

Good: I didn't bring my lunch today, but I'm thinking it might be a good day for microwave popcorn and a jaunt outside to buy a piece of fruit.

Services I Love

Well, I just inadvertantly deleted my whole post, so I'll start over. Why, when I cut, did I not just copy and then paste. What a dummy.

So, with my rather wordy rant against Comcast in the Olympics post comments, I thought I should offer a refreshing look at some companies whose services I enjoy and use regularly.

1. Netflix-on-Demand. Holy Lord, do I love this. For starters, no one need know how many times I watch Confessions of a Shopaholic* because there's no return trip to the video store. (Do people still call them video stores?) Also, they have every available season of every Law & Order available for me to watch whenever! And, because I bought a little adapter for my laptop, I can hook up my laptop to my TV and watch things on my big TV screen, from the comfort of my sofa, or I can watch movies in bed. I'll leave it to you to figure out which occurs more often.
   
2. Bank of America's "My Portfolio" service. Do you have Bank of America? Do you use this? It's pretty fun. OK, once you get past the front page showing your depressing low net worth, scoot over to the budgeting and reports section. It's like a wonderland of nerd-dom! You can figure out where all your money goes using adorable multi-colored pie charts. Oh, man, I love pie charts. It's not perfect or anything, but you could easily wile away an hour or so flipping between the different breakdowns. AND you can set budget limits. Unfortunately, when you spend past your budget, Bank of America doesn't like text you to say, "no more restaurants this month, Buttercup. We mean it." So, I guess it's kind of up to you to sort it out.
   
   Oh, on this pie chart, I have cropped the actual dollar figures because I didn't want anyone to have a heart attack when they see how much I'm repaying in student loans every month. Every month. For the next 25, nay, 24 years of my life. My, how time does fly! Also, this isn't really an accurate picture because (a) my rent check isn't reflected here (and I could have sworn I paid the rent this month...no matter) and (b) I went to the grocery and bought expensive things nearly every day of snowmaggedon, so it's reflecting a bigger piece of the pie than groceries usually get.

I guess here is where I say that both of these companies could give a crap that I'm promoting their services. Neither knows I exist, but for the presence of my account number on their rolls of "people from whom to extract money."

*I published once and then realized I forgot to put in the footnote about Confessions of a Shopaholic. I wasn't wowed by this movie, but I doubt anyone was completely blown away. I did enjoy it, though, and it's a reasonable stand-in for many other similar movies that I would watch again and again without having to rent it every time (10 Things I Hate About You, anyone? Anyone?). Also, I have no more room to store DVDs, so purchasing is out of the question.

Boston!

Hooray for Boston!

I just got back from my long-planned trip to Boston with my Ex-Darlin'. And. it. was. fantastic.

I was just looking back through my calendar for the past couple of years and I haven't had an actual vacation in a long, long time. Possibly since...2007? Every spare moment of vacation time I've had has been used to go visit my family in New Orleans, or to have family come visit me. I haven't done anything that was entirely vacation-y in such a long time, I forgot how freakin' awesome it is.

And I loved Boston! It was so lovely! Such a beautiful mix of historic and modern.

Here are the things I did/saw:

Newbury Street in Back Bay, Boston Common, Fenway Park, lunch at the Cask and Flagon, the Freedom Trail, Little Italy (North End), Chinatown, Cheers, swimming in the hotel pool (I was unbelievably excited about this), dinner at Summer Shack, lunch in North End, the USS Constitution, Bunker Hill, and the best freakin' cannoli I've ever tasted from Mike's Pastry.

Maybe I'll upload some pictures. I forgot my digital camera, so I bought a little disposable from CVS. We'll see how it went. I kept forgetting that they don't work quite as well as the digital in terms of taking pictures in low light. I don't know if any of them will come out.

Everyone we met was fantastically nice, too! People stopped us on the street to give us directions.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll go back, if only for the cannoli. Because, seriously--I am considering moving to Boston for that reason alone.

A Fall of Olympic Proportions

Can you believe I hadn't watched a single moment of the Olympics until this morning, when I watched several minutes of video on the NBC website? Turns out there was some pretty exciting stuff going on there.

I watched the men's figure skating videos for Plushenko and Lysacek. Basically, I was like, "meh, that doesn't look so hard. I could probably do that." Plus, I though their landings looked kind of sloppy. This is the Olympics, gentlemen! Stick those landings!

But, oh! Then I watched the, um, bloopers(?) video with all of the falls and spills, and people crashing into gates on the slalom ski slope, slamming into the boards in hockey games, coming out of triple lutzes to land on their butts, and I thought, "oh, maybe this is kind of hard." So, yeah, if you need some perspective on the actual difficulty of the tasks they set out to do, maybe your best bet is to watch the best athletes in their respective countries fall magnificently.

ALSO. How mad would you be if your skating doubles partner fell on the ice, and ruined your chances for a medal? What about the guy you're speed skating AGAINST who trips and crashes into you? I can't imagine how disappointing that must be.

In unrelated news, snowmaggedon prevented me from leaving DC at all to go home for the Super Bowl, so I watched the Saints win at my apartment, by myself. Talk about lacking a party atmosphere. It did give me three days off of work, but had I my druthers, I would have gone home.

There's No Business Like Snow Business

If you're from anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line (and really, even if you're not), you're probably pretty baffled by the PANIC that is stirring in the nation's capitol. It. Is. Crazy. We're expecting 16 - 23" of snow. Yeah, that's pretty serious. But people are losing it.

Last night, I got off work from Retail Store and decided to hit the grocery before I go home. I figured I might want some cookie dough, cereal, or Tyson's breaded chicken patties (shut up) during my impending snow house arrest. So, yeah. Grocery. 10 p.m. ELEVENTY BILLION PEOPLE. There was no meat! NO. MEAT. People had cleared the shelves! The cooler where the beef usually sits was completely bare. It was like shopping in Soviet Russia. Or at least, how I imagine it was to shop in Soviet Russia. I stood in the express lane for 45 minutes with my 7 items. Every lane was open and the lines stretched to the back of the store. Literally, there were people standing about 8 feet from the back wall of the store, waiting in line to be rung up.

So, people are a little panicky.

I was supposed to fly home to New Orleans Saturday morning, to take in some Mardi Gras action, visit my family, and watch the Superbowl with people who were interested in the outcome. But my flight has been canceled, so I'm going to fly out on Sunday morning. This is not optimal. I am coming back to DC on Monday, so my trip will only be about 24 hours long. Still, I was so excited about this trip, and I won't really have a good opportunity to visit again for the next couple of months, so I really want to go down there.

Growing up, I saw a lot of panic surrounding hurricane preparations: people would flock to grocery stores and Home Depot, scooping up all the bottled water/candles/flashlights/plywood that they could carry. It's kind of strange that, in a situation where the biggest threat is that you'll have to stay in your dry, warm house, people are just as capable of creating chaos.

And now, some very important advice on how to handle snowmaggedon: http://snowpocalypsedc.com/

Why I'll Never Be on a Game Show

This morning, from my strategic position on the Metro, I saw a sign someone had posted in their office window. Each letter was printed on a separate sheet of copier paper and was taped facing outward, presumably for the pleasure of passing Metro passengers. The message was, "Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day." How charming.

Anyway, the way the sign was put together made me think of Wheel of Fortune. And that made me think that it would be a little hilarious if you guessed every puzzle as "Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day, Pat."

Really, any bizarre answer with no real relation to the puzzle clues would work. Another option: guessing something very close to the answer, but not right. Like, if the puzzle looks like this:

"G_ne _ith the _ind"

You guess "Scarlett O'Hara." Maybe this is only funny to me.

Well, for your trouble, here's a picture of a baby animal. Cute, right?