31 March 2011

hey.

.

MY 


HONEY 


COMES 


HOME 


TOMORROW!!!

that is all for now.

I also may or may not be JUST as excited that I called 4 restaurants in Galveston and they ALL have gluten free menus. (!!!!)

29 March 2011

spring in my step


Dinner. Crappy picture already in the leftover container, but it was so fresh- tasting and springy that I had to take a picture. Fresh sauteed veggies, leftover beans, brown rice elbow noodles, fresh garden-picked herbs, and of course garlic. The fresh herbs really make the difference; I love my garden.

Back on the health train. I worked out today after skipping 5 days. I felt more energized during my workout and felt like I got more out of it instead of dragging through it. Sometimes you need a break.

Been so busy after work this week.
Tonight is another early bed night.

28 March 2011

mouthy

I've been tonguing this sore spot in the back of my mouth that has recently turned into a hole. It doesn't hurt anymore, so I took a flashlight to it.

Holy shit it's a tooth. It's coming in at a strange angle so I dunno if it's gunna eff up my teeth.

Strange to have a tooth coming in.

27 March 2011

ouchies.

Today I walked up to my mom and said, "Feel," pointing to my jaw/neck area. She felt, got a strange look on her face, and said, "What is that?"

That is the swollen node in my jaw/neck that is a result of a canker sore. Occasionally I'll get one so bad that my jaw, neck, and the side of my face gets swollen. I haven't had one in months, figures I have one now. I suspect it has to do with trace gluten ingestion, as the only time I get them nowadays is when I eat gluten. I should be more careful.

I still have not figured out the best way to get rid of them quickly. I've always had to wait for them to run their course. I still remember the suggestion Missy gave me once when I had one back in high school: 'I just jab at it with a q-tip dipped in mouthwash!'

The party was fun for gimpy, and today did, in fact, suck. I'm so very tired.

I was going to wait to change the sheets on my bed until Thursday, but I can't wait any longer. I need fresh sheets. NEED.

26 March 2011

superwoman

It's going to be a rough weekend and a long week.

Busy today.
Agenda: Work out, come home and shower. Head to Adult store to get stuff for the bachelorette party. Also need to get some lingerie for Ash's lingerie shower. I want to try to catch a friend's kid's baseball game, which should be adorable. Got an appointment for a hair cut at 230. After that I'd like to take a nap before the party starts. Yeah. We'll see.

Bachelorette party, wooo! Ashley's got a gimpy foot and can't walk, so the club should be interesting. And I have to leave early because I have to work Sunday. Why did I agree to work at 5am the day after the bachelorette party?? I don't to well without my full night's sleep, which is why I want a nap before the party starts. Hopefully Sunday morning won't suck so bad and the party will be fun for gimpy.

Sometime this week I need to accomplish:

Taking the pile of donations to Goodwill. My mom just brought a bunch of crap that she wanted to donate into my room and started a pile. Okay.

Grocery shopping.

Cleaning the floor. Dad spilled the cat food and water catching a gecko. Pumpkin's just eating it off the floor and drinking out of the toilet, so for now it will stay.

In general, cleaning. The floors are nasty, the trash cans are overflowing, the dishes are multiplying in the sink, the bathroom needs a nice coating of bleach... etc.

Laundry.

Washing/changing my bedsheets before Chris comes home.

Start baking wedding cakes to freeze.

Wash my car. I've taken it to the car wash at least once a week lately, but it gets filthy in two days, to the point where it's hard to see out the windows. The inside could use a vacuuming too.

Friday morning Chris comes home, and that's where I check out.
I'm taking a nice weekend vacation to the beach and I'm not doing shit.

But it's a long week between now and then. Let's doooo it.

23 March 2011

afternoon

At the vet buying dumbass-expensive cat food so the little shedder doesn't get a bladder infection and piss everywhere. I mean... I love pumpykins.

I see Ashley's friend and want to say hi but her back is to me and she's on the phone.

I check out, grab the food, head out the door.

*ring ring*

It's Ash.

"Hey."

"Hey. What are you doing?" -classic opening line for Ashley. She never starts a conversation without finding out what you are doing.

"Buying cat food."

"Well that doesn't scream, 'I'm lonely' or anything."

Thanks bitch, haha.

April 1st I get my man back for 10 days!!!!!! Got a fancy hotel reservation for the weekend down in Galveston, and I'm apprehensive about it changing again, but still very excited. It will be a very happy, busy week and I'm also seriously looking forward to having him at the wedding.

Hel-lo handsome buff man in dress blues who happens to adore me! Yes, it will be good.

I can't wait!

21 March 2011

FOOD


Fantastic pizza I made for dinner. I had to use up some cheese, zucchini, and chicken. I might be starting to get the hang of this cooking thing.

Chocolate covered craisins = love.

Headache. Last time instead of taking magic pills, which make me kind of jittery and it's hard to sleep, I put my heating pad on my forehead. It actually worked.

Anticipation- Chris comes home in 10 freaking days... After 8 months it's crazy to think that it's finally here!

20 March 2011

my temple

I have been eating really well and working out very regularly these past few weeks.
I just got so tired of feeling bloated, blah, and tired.
Besides, I wanted to really try and see if I could get my cholesterol down naturally.
And also, you know, Chris is coming home and he's going to be all buff and I don't want to be all flabby and unfit. ;o)

I've been feeling good; I've had energy, I've been sleeping well, and I also lost 5 pounds since January.

This weekend kinda threw that out the window. Thursday I gorged on corned beef, Friday it was a buttery, fried fish dinner, yesterday it was mindless snacking all day, and this morning it was many pieces of bacon and hashbrowns. It was delicious, but now I just feel ucky and kinda gross.

I've gotten a little low on groceries. Yesterday I realized that I really do need to keep fresh ingredients on hand, or I'll get lazy and mindlessly snack on crap. I usually buy only a few fresh items like fruit and veggies, for fear it will go bad before I eat it.
But fresh produce doesn't go bad if it's actually there to be eaten instead of left in the crisper while I eat fruit snacks or chips. What a concept, huh?

So, anyway, back on track.

19 March 2011

sugar mama

Got up and decided to pay bills first thing this morning.

I paid my smallest student loan in full- woo hoo, only 4 more to worry about!

Can't decide what to do today. I could go spend more money... but I kinda just spent a lot of it. I have to be on call for work tonight, so it kinda limits my socializing. Hrm.

18 March 2011

eff this shiz

I've decided not to keep updating about Chris' leave.

Every time I hear something, it's worse and worse news than what I heard the time before. I knew the military was a pain the ass, but I had no idea they bullshit you around this much.

Fuck, how many times can I be disappointed? Every time I think, "Well, the situation can't get much worse than this!" and then they get creative with even suckier news that makes it harder and harder to work around.

*edit*


About 30 minutes after this post, I got a phone call that turned things around and cheered me up about 5 bajillion percent!

Also, this song was in my head all day. No idea why.



"I'm gunna sit on my buuuuttttt."

17 March 2011

pooh.

The fridge in the house is out.

Everything is currently crammed into my fridge. It's cool, but I know my family.

I'll be DAMNED if they think they can tromp though my room at all hours of the night snacking. The kitchen in Jen's room closes at eight!

St. Patty's day corned beef for dinner, the smell is wafting in. I'm excited. This once-a-year treat just makes my mouth water.

Oh, Weekend. You're so darn close.

16 March 2011

abbbbsss

Doing one of these Whittle My Middle challenges, first found at Oh She Glows.

I kinda modified some of the moves, and have been doing it for about 6 days with no major issues.

I do:

Plank
Side Plank
Torso Twist
Plank up (Oh, dear God, the humanity!)
Boat
Bike crunches
Ball crunch
Ball roll-out

I started the first day doing as many reps as I could until I wanted to stop. Then every day I add either 5 reps or 1 rep, depending on how hard the move is and how reasonably I can accomplish the addition.

So yeah, so far it's not that bad.

But today.
Today I'm dragging through it! It's so much harder! I think I've reached the point where I've added on enough reps that it's really too hard to do at once. I'm having to stop and take a breather, then finish the set.

But it's better than nothing, and I really miss having a strong-feeling core.

Skinny Wiener!

15 March 2011

spring

Saw my first pink primrose of the spring on the side of the road today.

And other stuff to mention, but it's much too pretty to sit at the computer and blog.

Time to go watch Pumpkin try to catch that lizard, and prevent her from bringing it inside.

14 March 2011

awkard excitement

Was emailing Chris' mom today to see if she's heard any updates about the whole leave situation, since I haven't actually heard from Chris himself.

Turns out she gets some kind of "briefing" email from the commander or something. I was like, "Whaaa? Why have I not heard about this briefing email?? I'm dying for some kind of information!" only in a nicer way kuz I can't offend his mom.

So she emails it and I take a look at it and it's kinda flim-flammy, but it looks like the leave dates are decided. Although I wouldn't put it past them to change things up again.

The schedule is kinda sucky but I can still manage to take a few days off work... however most of the days I'm planning to take off work are actually after he leaves, for the wedding.

At first I was bummed, looking at the awesome schedule for the sweet 2-week post-wedding-stress leave dates that took some creativity to craft but turned out to be a masterpiece... that I now have to crumple up and settle for 3 days of boyfriend-ful-ness and see him off to battle right before attending a love-fest. [Sorry, Ash, your wedding will be a love-fest no matter how hard you try to make it not one. It's a wedding.] Brutal! Stab me in the heart right now!

But now, I'm just damn excited. I don't give a shit about the shitty details. I've been looking forward to it for so long that it's hard to put a damper on the underlying excitement. He's going to be here! Besides, I have a feeling that I'll need to get used to bullshittyness and be happy with what I'm given. Oh, did I ever imagine I'd be a military wife girlfriend? Hell no. But huh, shit, here I am, a year into it.

Anyway, so I try to keep conversation with his mom friendly but not too shmoopy. I mean, she probably figures we like each other and all that, but other than that I don't go into it. The shmoopiest I get is right here on the blog, probably because it's easier to type shmoopy things than it is to actually say them out loud.

But she said something that made me smile. Out of pretty much nowhere, I got, "I know it is hard being apart but you mean the world to him."

Now, in person I would have awkwardly not known what to say. Actually, I don't have any idea how to reply to that in email either. I probably won't. Awkward!

But it was still some kind of small connection in the barren communication world that it's been lately. His momma telling me that gave me that pang of missing-ness that's usually dulled by the fact that I have other interests besides him.

Like the fact that I just made a batch of cinnamon roll muffins from scratch without measuring anything. Man, I'm a kickass baker. Why can't that translate into cooking?

Oy, that's an issue for another day, because I've already babbled this whole post away about shmoop again.

13 March 2011

check yourself

I'm sure you've seen this, but take a quick reality check, and have a nice Sunday :o)

12 March 2011

as we know it

Devastating natural disaster after devastating natural disaster. I can't help but cringe watching all the videos of the earthquake/tsunami. Maybe this is all leading up to the end of the world next year.

How crazy would that be if it really was?
If so, there's not a damn thing we can do about it!

Weekend: Thank goodness you are here. You should stay a while.

10 March 2011

Habits

Ashley and I were talking last night about how you don't notice habits or unique quirks that people have until you have to live with them (Or, in my case, spend weekends with them). Like Collin despises ketchup and doesn't put on deodorant when he showers at night. And how Chris doesn't rinse his dishes and just leaves them to congeal and crust in the sink, and likes to wear socks around the house, while I prefer bare feet and rinsed dishes.

We got to talking about towel habits. Like, after my shower I immediately hang up my towel to dry, and I also use the towel for about a week before I wash it, or until it no longer smells like fabric softener. Ashley told me that Collin used to use a new towel every day, and thought it was gross to use the same towel for more than one day, even if was just to dry off after a shower. I mean, come on! It's like jeans! They can stay clean for a month as long as there's no stains or anything.

Anyways, back on towels. Chris is the type who uses the towel to dry off, flings it any random place, and forgets about it. I can't tell you how many times I've showered at his place only to find no clean towels, and he'd hand me one that he'd flung on the chair the day before, damp and mildewy smelling, telling me it was clean kuz he'd only used it once. UGH.

That brings me to the story. The day that Chris left for boot camp, he showered at my place and, of course, flung the towel in any random place. That night, after an emotional exhausting day and a long week ahead of me, I wanted nothing more than to crawl in to bed. What did I find? The randomly flung towel-- that had soaked my bedsheets and gotten some wet spots on the mattress. I had to change my sheets and blow-dry the mattress at like midnight. I was so annoyed, and the worst part was that I couldn't even call him to yell at him!

So, what do YOU do with your bath towels? Do you use them more than once? Are you a hanger-upper or a fling-and-forgetter?

09 March 2011

GROW baby!

Now comes the part of the gardening cycle where I've planted everything and am anxiously awaiting the growth. Then one day something sprouts and I'm all, "OOH! SOMETHING GREW! LOOK!"

And it's something like this:


Not the cat drinking the water. She loves the soaker hose.



It is exciting and I have no idea what it is. It's growing in the basil pot and also in the spinach area of the plot, so it could be either, both, or just some weeds.

Either way, like every year, I'm happy something grows at all.

08 March 2011

ja-GOGH-bi


Checkk it outtt. Pretty sweet artwork huh? And no, I don't know where to put my cheesehat after the Superbowl so it's just kinda moved around to less annoying spots until I can put it back in the attic.

Anyways. A couple weekends ago I cashed in on Akhtar's Christmas present to me and checked out Pinot's Palette. We had a lot of fun drinking wine, eating cheese, and painting*. And our paintings all turned out similar but just a little bit different.


I'm big cheesin' right smack dab in the middle.

I hung my artwork in the bathroom, because I kinda don't have much wall space. Every time I look at it, I still like it. I call that a win!

*in the last picture in that album, James has got a seriously funny face working. Haha!

07 March 2011

not happy.

Hmmmph.

I almost started crying on the phone with his mom.

Chris is not coming home for two weeks.

He's coming home for one week. Subtract travel time and it's a realistic 4-5 days before he's deployed to Afghanistan.

He's not coming home after the wedding.

He's coming home the week of the wedding, but most likely will leave the day before the wedding. Cue weepy, crabby Jen trying not to be weepy or crabby on my sister's big day.


I've been looking forward to a nice, two week break with the love of my life that I haven't seen in 8 months. HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT. No trips to the beach with the fancy hotel. No long weekends of carefree snuggles. I need something substantial before he's gone for another 8 months. A few days is nothing but a tease. This has been brutal and the only thing keeping me going was the promise of a few weeks of contact.

I had my work schedule intricately planned, his plane tickets were bought, and I even moved around my period with birth control pill scheduling. I love those pills.

Instead, I get to see him for -at most- a couple of days during the most hectic week of the freaking year. (And, coincidentally, on the week that I've re-scheduled my period. Grr)

I have no idea how to reschedule my work schedule and what days to take off, because I haven't actually gotten to talk to him. I went from excited, pending bliss to disappointed, sad unknown.

I should have seen this coming.

06 March 2011

Happy Sunday

What a gorgeous day. I love days like this; so pretty and carefree.

Currently vegging on the couch with a sleeping kitty next to me. Occasionally I'll reach over to scratch her ears and she does that adorable purr/meow thing. The neighbors are hanging out in the backyard playing music. Diggin' it.

It's hard not hearing from Chris. If he were here we'd be enjoying the pretty day and I just miss him so much.

Got a lot done today. After years of wanting one, I finally bought a soaker hose for the garden. Maybe things will grow in the corner that gets too much sun/ not enough water. Crossing my fingers, but not too hopeful.

I love Old Navy way too much. My mom and I spent over an hour and entirely too much money there. But to be fair, my summer wardrobe was looking a little sad. Stretched out, faded tank tops and ill-fitting shorts are not very fun to wear. A sampling of what I brought home:




I'm currently loving frilly, girly florals.


 
Got me a pair of lesbian shorts. But I love the non-riding-up-age. As long as I wear something feminine with it, I can work it.


For layering- I got several colors. On sale for 5 bucks!


Also got the shrug in white- I love the versatility and instant modesty of a shrug, and it's cooler than a cardigan.

Now all I need is a pair of khaki capris. I had to get rid of my old favorite ones in the Great Closet Cleanout.

Hope y'all have a happy Sunday.

04 March 2011

that time of year

I came home tired and wanting nothing more than a glass of wine and my couch and a good (free) redbox movie.

Instead I came home to my mom raking and cleaning out the flowerbeds.

I had planned to get my garden ready tomorrow, but I went ahead and tackled it this afternoon. Besides, there was nothing in Redbox that I wanted to see, free or not.

I took out a trash bag full of leaves, random dead plants that didn't survive the freeze, and this crazy plant which actually thrived and is super hard to kill. I pull it out every year to clean things up, and every year it takes over. I don't mind, because in the hottest summer months it's all that will grow and it's nice to have some green still in my garden. I think it helped keep a few of my plants from freezing this year.

Last year I dug up the whole plot pretty deep and aerated the soil really well. This year it was a piece of cake to toss the dirt around and mix new stuff in. It went from dead crazy jungle to cute, neat garden in a couple of hours. I seriously should have taken a before and after picture.

This year's focus is growing herbs. I discovered the huge difference between dried herbs and fresh herbs, and it's so hard to find the right fresh herbs when I want them. So, this year I hope to grow my own! I just hope something grows.

Also, gardening means the end of winter, so I switched my winter stuff out for my summer dresses. It makes me want to deep spring clean, which I might just do tomorrow since the garden is finished.
I couldn't help but change my sheets and freshen up my pillows and comforter. Bed is going to be awesome tonight. By the way, I still can't help but smile every single time I climb into that amazing bed.

Which will be very soon.

03 March 2011

crazy town

Every day after work I drive down the same street to get on the freeway.

And every day I see:

Someone dressed as the Statue of Liberty boogie-ing down to music only they can hear (I think they might have an ipod) on the street corner. I have no idea what they're advertising but they've got the full getup- gown, crown, and torch. Totally jamming.

This chick that looks around teenagerish standing on the median holding another sign advertising for a business that I don't know what, because she always faces the opposite way. So basically I see her ass every day.

A ton of people hanging out under the overpass by the Westpark Tollway. They don't look exactly homeless, just hoodlum-ish. Why on earth are they hanging out? They're not begging for money and it's not like at Home Depot where someone's going to pick you up and give you a day job. What are they doing? Just spending their day under the overpass? Boring.

A guy standing by the WE BUY GOLD shop on the feeder holding a sign saying... well... WE BUY GOLD. Sometimes he's in a seasonally appropriate outfit like Santa or something, but lately he's been rockin' the hawaiian shirts. A few months ago he looked like he was homeless and the owner of WE BUY GOLD took pity and gave him a job. He's looking much better now. I guess that job is working for him. That's the story I make up for him anyway. The overpass hoodlums could take a lesson from him.


So I get a few blocks of interesting. After that it's freeway and boring Sugar Land.

02 March 2011

Neat.

Whoa. Cool.



Nothing new here.

My days go pretty much the same.

Had to get a tire replaced today. I went to check the pressure the other day and I noticed a pretty significant cut in the tire near the rim. And the rim's kinda bent and the hubcap is cracked off. Afraid it would cause a blowout in the future, I figured it was a good idea to replace it. I think it may have been involved with the icy day incident. The guy said it could have been a pot hole. Yeah, let's go with that.

So anyway, I'm a cheapass and declined to get the lifetime warranty with the tires I bought back in October. Which would have covered the cost of the replacement tire. The guy told me that he could retroactively apply the lifetime warranty for 70 bucks that would cover all 4 tires. And that one tire cost 83 bucks by itself.
Um, sweet. THEN they got the whole thing done in about 15 minutes. Discount Tire is on my awesome list.

01 March 2011

little of this

I made some brown rice "risotto" that is so good that I keep going back into the fridge to get some more.

A little of the bridal shower:

Cupcakes


snacks


snacks

tissue pom poms

toilet paper wedding dresses

shot of my sister's family tattoo