Random Thoughts

The inside of my nose is so sore, I can’t even wear my nose ring. And that’s okay. I think it may be time to phase it out (shut up, mom). I’ve had it for 10 years. I think I got my money’s worth.

Wait. I didn’t pay for it. A girlfriend did. As my birthday present.

So, yeah. I may be over it.

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For those of you who aren’t on Facebook, my car was “broken into” over the weekend. Well, I accidentally left it unlocked, so there was no “breaking”. They just went through my glove box, went through my console. That’s about it. Took my bigass black Chevron $10 sunglasses. Big deal. They may have taken my good sunglasses, too. I can’t find them. But that’s nothing new.

Anyway, there was really nothing else to take. I’d brought my cd case into the house a few weeks ago because I listen to my iPod all the time now. And I’m not stupid enough to leave my iPod in the car. Or anything else for that matter. So, while it’s a little creepy, it ain’t no big thang. I’m just glad there’s no damage.

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Dawn simulator update – a waste of money.

I am completely sleeping through the bright light in my face now. Todd has started setting his alarm again for 6:35am and that’s pretty much what I’m waking up to.

But the simulator makes for a nice, soft nightlight, so after about 20 years, I’ll have gotten my money’s worth.

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I got my blood panel results. Everything is normal. Except my “good” cholesterol. It’s very low. How does that happen? What exactly does your “good” cholesterol do?

I was telling Kim-n-Tim this a couple of weeks ago, and Tim had the same problem. Low good cholesterol. And his doctor suggested alcohol (I love his doctor!) and almonds. So, I’ve started having a small glass of wine every few days (and sometimes tequila….ahem…) and I have almonds at work now.

But my thyroid was normal, so that made my therapist happy. And I’m taking iron regularly now so we can rule out any physical conditions that would cause me to be fatigued. Must all be mental. Good thing I’m in therapy.

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Our buddy Kyle and his girlfriend came over for dinner last night. I, of course, made my veggie enchiladas. And of course, they were impressed. But I told Kyle, next time he comes over for dinner, Todd will have to cook because I have already cooked my two impressive meals for him – the enchiladas and the coconut basmati rice with gingered greens.

I’m out.

But Todd! He made fried bananas for dessert (because you gotta love a theme dinner!) They were freakin’ incredible. I’ve never had fried bananas before, but they were super easy (dip the bananas in pancake batter and fry, top with cinnamon and vanilla ice cream) and super yummy.

I love my husband. He is an amazing cook. He whips up fried rice when we have nothing else in the house, and he made this cheesy pasta dish last week that fantastic – with cream cheese! Who knew!

And since I love to clean, we have a very balanced system.

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Tyler (and Kayleigh) got a wild hair yesterday and completely purged and cleaned his room. And if I’m telling you that it’s clean, you know it’s clean. Holy crap. He moved his bed, took out a couple of bags of garbage, a bag of Goodwill donations, did some laundry and actually put sheets on his bed.

Todd emailed me and asked me to check to see if hell was freezing over where I was.

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I kneed Todd in the butt the other night. In my sleep.

I turned over onto my stomach (which is bad for my back, I know) and cranked my left knee up and WHAM, my knee went right into is ass. Guess I was a little closer to him than I thought.

I immediately woke up and sputtered, very sleepily, “Sorry….sorry…”, then promptly fell back asleep.

We have all kinds of night time stories.

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Why don’t people at work understand that when you finish washing dishes with the sponge you MUST rinse all of the soap out of the sponge? ALL OF IT? Why is this so hard? Wasn’t this something we were all taught growing up? If you don’t get all of the soap out, the sponge goes bad so much quicker. JUST RINSE IT OUT!

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And lastly, boots:

(For the Mrs. Clause in you. I may have to save up for these....)

(For the Scotsman (or Scotswoman) in you.)

Sigh. I love boots.

Cars and Kitchens

I’m getting used to the new car. Actually, without thinking I apologized to it last week when I hit a pothole at lunch. Crap. I may be getting attached.

I’ve finally figured out the bluetooth system and it’s pretty handy. I got a call on the way home last week when CB was in the car with me and it scared the crap out of her. This voice comes on and says “Incoming Call”. Then I just push a button and start talking. Apparently, I don’t have voice recognition, so I still have to manually dial the phone number. No biggie. I don’t normally dial calls on my drive home, just answer them.

I’ve gotten some suggestions for names for the car. “Sugar” and “Foxy” (as in Silver Fox) and "Silver Bullet" but I told Todd, this car reminds me of a little skinny 20 something guy, with a Beatles haircut who’s addicted to his iPhone and other techie gadgets. You can picture him – he’s in pencil jeans, hipster shoes and probably has stubble.

So, name that boy. If this were a German car, I’d call him “Dieter”, but it’s Korean, so Dieter doesn’t really work.

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We got our new kitchen cabinets and counter top!

(like, four weeks ago...sigh..I'm so behind)

We are officially done with the house.

At least for a few months.

Well, we still need a garbage disposal....

Happy Solstice

Today is the winter solstice. The first day of winter. The shortest day of the year. Tomorrow, our days get longer, one little minute at a time. And none too soon.

A funny piece of trivia for you… I bought Ruby on the Summer Solstice of 2006. And I bought her replacement (un-named thus far) during the Winter Solstice of 2009.

Granted, Saturday wasn’t the solstice, but close enough for story telling purposes.

The Husband and I headed off to Car Pros at 10:00am Saturday morning. I knew I wanted to buy from them again. That’s where I got Ruby and they were pretty painless to deal with. I even recommended neighbors to Car Pros and received a $50 when they bought a new car from the same saleswoman I did.

This time, I had done my homework, of course. An excel spreadsheet that listed the cars I was interested in, along with their dimensions, price tags, mpg, and features I wanted (heated mirrors, sunroof, mp3/iPod port, rear defroster and wipe and keyless entry). After much surfing at work…uh…research, I decided to go with the Elantra Touring.


You'll have to pardon the dude in the background. Daylight is limited up here these days, so I took this pic on my lunch break. I was pressed for time.

It’s the next generation of Elantra hatchbacks, even though the body is not at all an Elantra. The hatchback is much more flat and cut off at the back, but there’s still ample amount of room in the “trunk”. It’s a lot more solid than Ruby, and over four inches wider in the wheelbase so it feels like it hugs a bit better. But all of the standard features inside are very familiar – another reason I like it.

And, of course, it’s loaded. Because if you’re going to be forced into buying a new car, get the NEW CAR. It has the mp3 aux port, along with a USB port (so I could put music on a thumb drive and use the USB). The stereo controls are on the steering wheel, the huge radio display also give the temp outside and there are heated cloth seats (aka butt warmers).

And the uber cool feature that I still haven’t figured out how to use is the bluetooth thingy. I turn on the bluetooth feature on my phone, throw it back in my purse and forget about it. If someone calls, I push a button up where my overhead lights are and BAM. I’m talkin’ on the phone. The salesman programmed my phone in for me, but we didn’t have time for him to show me how to put the numbers in or the do the voice recognition or whatever you have to do to actually place a call. I can only answer calls. Which is fine for now.

The only negative thing about it is that I really, really wanted red with the black interior. But the dealership was having a hard time locating one nearby, so I drove the silver one off the lot. Now I notice that everyone on the road has a silver car. I blend. I don’t like blending.

I took CB down and showed it to her this morning. She oohed and ahhed. She said the silver was very “refined”.

It really is a nice car. I’m just having a hard time being excited because I really didn’t want a new car at all. And this whole process has been a colossal pain in my ass. Carless for three weeks, rental car fun, getting turned down for an auto loan (damn mortgage), dealing with car salesmen the Saturday before Christmas and to top off - this great new fear of driving in dark, rainy weather. Fantastic!

Yesterday, Todd said that he was sad that I wasn’t more excited about this car. I compared it to his house burning down. Everyone comes over after you rebuild and says, “Wow!! This is a great house!! Aren’t you excited about your new house?!!”

Well, no, not really. Sure it’s nice, but I really didn’t want my old house to burn down. Ya know?

I’ll get over my grumpiness soon. I do enjoy all the bells and whistles on this car and it’s fun to drive. But I’m still just mourning the loss of my best buddy.