Fingers Crossed

My husband has this idea that if he were to win the lottery he would donate 50%. I have told him he could donate that 50% to me. 'Cause, otherwise, that's just plain stupid. We've had the conversations on a few occasions and the majority of peeps agree with me. But, he's 'made a deal with God.'

Today I got fed up at work. So I swung by and picked up a few tickets on my way home. Why not? Surely if we won the largest mega millions jackpot EVER we could figure out how to fairly/justly/smartly split it up.

But then I got a better idea. A genius, brilliant, amazing idea. So I said a little prayer as I bought my two tickets. If Michael's ticket won we'd donate 50% of the money. If my ticket won we'd donate 51% of the money. God can appreciate a bribe, right?

So, if you don't hear from me this weekend, I'm in a sulky funk because I have to go back to work on Monday.

My Poor Baby

Yesterday was a bad day for my car. I drove through what I thought was old smeared paint in a parking lot. Turns out it was fresh, wet paint and it got all over my tire. No big deal. Except when I drove home that fresh wet paint flung off the spinning wheel and splattered all underneath the wheel well. By the time I got home to rinse it off it was too far dried. Thank goodness it didn't get on the pretty metallic blue paint job. 'Cause then stuff would have really hit the fan. But still, I have a speckled undercarriage that is quite visible. Hopefully, it will eventually wash away.

Then, pulling up to dinner the 'low tire pressure' light came on. Interesting. I figured it was a fluke. I remembered the sales guy saying it could sometimes come on and it might reset itself. I couldn't possibly need air in my tires a month and a half into owning the car. Or if I did, I didn't check my tire pressure on the old car nearly enough.

Leaving last night the light was still on. Okay, okay I'll get air tomorrow....KIRPLUNK! The whole underside of the car hit with a grotesque crash as we cruised over a speed bump. Why you might ask? Because the right rear tire was completely flat. Luckily the hubby was there as I have managed to get out of changing all of my flat tires thus far. Over a decade of driving in three different vehicles and I have never once changed my own flat. And, until today, I have never once had to take the flat to get plugged.

Today, I lugged it to the shop for repair. Two hours of my life later...I was finally back on the road with four 'almost as good as new' (as the service guy stated) tires. And a spare tire rattling around in the back because they somehow managed to loose the thingamajig that secures the tire in place, even though I made a point of placing it in the trunk near that jack last night. No problem, they ordered me a new one. And then informed me ordering the part was 'more trouble than it was worth.' But they are so great that order it they did, without my asking them to, and I can pick it up on Friday.

Maybe I'm just not patient enough, but I feel two hours is a bit ridiculous to plug a tire. Not to mention I was slightly put off by the comments about returning me an almost good as new car, short one part, with the implication it was my fault. So when the service guy told me to expect a survey about my experience I thought, don't expect much. Then he informed me 'The only acceptable answer is....?'

[insert blank stare here, as I had no clue what the heck he was talking about]

'Tens. Because nine is a failure."

[insert second blank stare because two hours of my life are gone and a perfect score you're not going to get]

NC-Double A

I'm not the biggest sports fan on earth. (You can ask my husband. Sometimes I flip and demand ESPN be turned off NOW--I just can't handle it for another second. I've always been more of a playing or watching in person sort of fan). Nevertheless, you are going to get a few sports related blogs here soon. And not in the I've been playing sports or heading to any games sort of way.

First things first, the NCAA tournament. I was invited to enter my bracket in a friendly competition. My husband and sister both entered. I didn't. I figured if there was any sort of monetary gain riding on it my bracket would most definitely bite the big one. Turns out, I am rather quite proud of it. I picked 3 out of the 4 final four. Not too bad for someone who didn't follow the regular season, like, at all.

On a whim, and really just because it was easier to fill out a bracket online than on paper, my bracket did get entered in the ESPN Tournament Challenge. And, because I'm competitive, even if there's no real hope of me winning, I have been checking it out on a semi-regular basis. I am quite proud of my stats so far. I had a bit of a drop in the second round where two of my elite eight teams dropped like flies. But, the #2s who dropped right of the bat were only one round too early for my bracket, as I had neither of them making it to a third game. And since then I've watched my scores slowly rise. I am currently in the 98.8 percentile. And I've watched my rank go from 2million-something, to 500 thousand-something, to 200 thousand-something to it's current 76, 537. Not bad in millions of entries. Also, not the best of odds to win it all. But I'm still going to brag about it. For just a little while.

In March

Today I went for a run. And by run I mean brisk walk. Because, let's be honest, I don't often exert the amount of energy it takes to run. It was 80 degrees out. In March. I wore a tank top and shorts and was a bit hot. In March! I had the air conditioning on in the car. (I had to drive to and from the walk as I live on a dangerous street to walk down and didn't feel like playing chicken with the cars today). When I was tired of walking I sat in the park pavilion reading for awhile because with the breeze blowing it was just too nice to leave. Then I went home and washed both cars, because it was warm enough to do so. In March. I got a bit of a tan today. In March. In Maryland.

The other day I made these.

I used the recipe from girlmeetslife.com. Cake Batter Blondies...a party in your mouth. I followed the recipe except instead of adding sprinkles I used a funfetti cake mix. Genius, right? Except, it turns out a funfetti cake mix is now nothing more than cake mix and...sprinkles. Gone were the moist, colorful, globs of some incomprehensible ingredient. The weird globs are still depicted on the box. So where did they go? They were a major awesome factor in my youth. And I miss them. Disappointment.

Anyway, these blondies were the easiest thing ever to bake. You literally mixed 5-6 (depending on your cake mix choice) ingredients popped the batter into a pan and popped the pan into the oven. A cinch even for the baking illiterate. The only addition to those instructions is that the "batter" is really more of a dough. It doesn't pour into the pan easily the way normal brownies or cakes do. So just plop the dough into the pan and mush it around a bit so it fills up the space.

For those of you crazy enough to give up chocolate for lent (which no one in this house was), these will get you through. And for you chocoholics out there it's okay to branch out sometimes. These are much pretty colors than your typical brownie. Try it. You'll like it.

You Know You Live in the Boondocks When...

You open your front door and find roosters on your porch. Yep, roosters. Five of 'em. They looked something like this:

(They had migrated down the driveway by the time I got my camera and deleted pictures from my full memory card.--Sign of a true photographer, always ready to catch the spontaneous shot. I'll have to work on my hobby. And my procrastination skills. Uploading pictures has been on my To-Do List for months.)

But I digress...

I was happily taking shots when, out of nowhere, the pesky cat approached. The Pest has been annoying me for the last month and a half. He seems to have taken a shining to the new car. And I frequently find him sitting on the roof, or proof of his recent presence. He pounced, the roosters flipped a shit, they all rolled around in the shrubbery for a bit and then a fat, juicy rooster came flying out five feet from me. I squealed. (I'm sorry! I was startled. It was quite the squawking, feathery ruckus.) Then I berated myself for not having caught it on camera or video, cause it really was quite amusing. The cat scuttled away and the roosters continued meandering down the driveway.

Until they realized we weren't going way, got a bit annoyed at the clicking of my camera and started to assemble a charge. The cat returned. (One small point in his favor). The roosters retreated to their trenches. And I found a fresh, muddy set of paw prints up the windshield and across the roof. Mother F'er!

So I walked over and gave the roosters a pep talk. Stop hunkering in the ditch! Man up! Kill the cat!

Rooster's Formulating their Plan of Attack

And then the roosters rolled their eyes and left. I guess they didn't understand my passion.

Earlier Today...

M: Babe, whatcha doin?

E: Googlin myself

M: [laughs]

E: Every once in a while you have to Google yourself. Make sure there are no lies out there about you.

M: You ever Google me?

E: Yeah, but there are too many of you out there to determine if there are any lies about you.

M: That's how I got you to marry me.

E: Yeah, it was too much effort to do the research to figure out why I shouldn't.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's Beginning to Feel a lot Like Spring...

...and I love it! The last two days I was actually a bit over warm when outside. In March! I was warm! I'm pretty sure this weather has to stay, because I am really not going to handle it well if it goes away.

The other day the hubby brought home these. Just because it was Wednesday.

And now, combined with the blooms outside, it is beginning to look a lot like Spring as well.

A Nice Mistake

Last week I ordered a couple pairs of shoes for work. Today I returned them. They were the same brand and size, but one pair was way too big, and one pair pinched my toes. Story of my life. The lady at the store took her time ringing up the return. My attention had started to wander around the store when I heard, "How did that happen?"

I looked back at the cash register. "Whoa! I don't know, but I'll take it!"

The total the computer told her to credit for a $291 purchase: $71,536.48.

Yes, please!

Pinterest

I am addicted. I have been putting off joining Pinterest for months. In theroy, I told myself, it didn't sound that interesting. But I was told it was deceptively addicting. No need to become hooked on yet another silly time consumer. And so I just decided not to check it out. Until today.

Big mistake. I am a recent Pinterest fanatic. I couldn't stop. It didn't help that today was a long, long, day...12 hours stuck indoors at 'the place that shall not be named' with very minimal work to keep me stimulated. And so I sat. And pinned. And pinned some more.

And, sadly, an hour after joining, I had more followers there than on this blog.

For those of you who haven't been on Pinterest or just don't see the appeal, let me just say this: No matter how silly it may seem (might be), I learned three things today.

-How to make a bookcase into a bar

-How to add a wine cooling station to a picnic table

-How to cut glass with string, nail polish remover and an open flame*

All cool in my book. Although that may make me a bit of a wino...and a pyro...

*For those of you wondering...cutting glass requires you to douse it in nail polish remover, light it on fire, rotate it a bit (you know with your own hands), then throw it into a basin of cold water. And we all know what happens when hot glass hits cold water--yikes!

Favorite or Not-So-Favorite

Today is my favorite day of the year and my least favorite day of the year. Today is day light savings time! The one where we "spring forward!" Okay, well technically tomorrow at 2am is day light savings, but close enough. I love spring day light savings because it means, starting tomorrow, it will be daylight for a whole extra hour. Which means when I get off work at 7:30pm it won't seem like the middle of the night! Which means we are getting closer to days where daylight doesn't dwindle until 9! Pure bliss. I love late night sun.

Today is my least favorite day of the year because, while tomorrow will be great, tonight we lose an hour of sleep. And I generally don't do well losing sleep. Ask my mother. Or my sister or my husband. Me-sleep=cranky.

A Corporate Affair

I could never be the corporate type. I worked a sixteen hour shift the other day and it just about did me in. I can't imagine having one of those lawyery, businessy, corporatey careers where you work 12, 15, 16 hours a day to get ahead, or stay on top, or whatever it is that requires such a dedication of time. Granted, in my career, it was sixteen hours of on my feet hustle and bustle. I don't have the boredom....er, I mean luxury, of sitting behind a desk on the phone or computer all day. And so sixteen hours is physically as well as mentally taxing. But still, waking up at 5:30 to get to the office by 7 and then not making it home until nearly midnight is not my idea of fun. I'm glad they are rare, volunteer experiences in my job. The mandated 12 hour shifts are long enough, thank you. And three days a week of them is plenty! I'll save the five days of long, grueling hours to those more capable. Cause while the shift itself didn't seem so bad the repercussions the next day found me struggling to stay awake by dinner time.

Queen of the Road

I am currently reading a book called Queen of the Road. I am not yet sure how I feel about it or if I will recommend it. On the one hand the authors voice annoys me. But on the other, she has a sense of humor I can relate to.

"the first time he suggested we split chores on a weekly basis, I said,

'That's fine, honey, but on my week, I'll write a check'"

The book is about a middle aged couple, both shrinks, who give up their jobs to travel the country for a year. In a bus. Granted the bus is fully pimped out with a plasma TV, granite counters and a sink I would have to spend an entire paycheck on, but it's still a bus at heart.

She is a bit materialistic. She also likes to harp on how she's changing. As in really ram it down your throats that she's becoming a better person instead of just letting you admire the gradual progression. Anyway, I mention the book because, as part of my get active in March campaign, I do kind of relate and like what she has to say. She describes herself as probably the laziest person ever. And it makes me feel a little less bad about my own lazy, pajama wearing days. And she's becoming more outdoorsy, social, active and less materialistic, listless and depressing. All at an age much older than I am. So there's hope.

I'll let you know if it's worth following her journey "through the all important M's- Monogamy, Moving In, Mortgage, and Matrimony. And then, unfortunately, motor home." Stay tuned.

Pet Peeves

I was recently reminded about a pet peeve of mine. My fabulous sister was kind enough to mention it in her blog. Check her out. She's kind of funny. (BW)

I hate when socks get holes in them! I especially hate when socks get holes in them in the middle of your day when you are at work or out and about or somewhere where changing your socks is not going to be feasible for quite some time. I hate this because, as they are wont to do, your toe always manages to wiggle its way into the hole. No matter how many times you scrunch 'em up to pull it out, or reach down to adjust, the bugger always makes its way back. And a toe flapping in the breeze inside my shoe with sock strangulation on the horizon is the most annoying feeling!

I have had a string of holey socks recently. With one such episode (the one BW referred to) occurring in NYC. Do you know how hard it is to take your shoe off to fix a sock issue when roaming around Manhatten!?! And so I took my shoe off and turned my sock inside out. In the middle of McDonalds. Surprisingly it worked! The hole was repositioned and the little toes didn't have the stretch required to wiggle free. Pet peeve solved.

It's Snowing! And Blooming!

I noticed for the first time today that the unseasonably warm weather we've had tricked the daffodils in our yard. Not only have the green stalks emerged but some have flower buds and one looks about ready to pop open in bloom. This seemed a bit premature so I did a teensy bit of research (and I do mean a rather small amount as I am not all that invested in the daffodils) and it seems they are in fact at least a few weeks early in their stages.

I am a gardener in my head, if not in practice. Meaning, one day, when I actually own the land I live on, I would like to take up gardening and invest some time and energy in making my yard a source of pride. In the meantime, I continue to kill every living green thing that has the misfortune to make it into my house. Or onto my patio. So, since the daffodils aren't mine, and they'd probably incur more damage at my hand then in taking their chances with an early bloom, I'll leave them be and not worry too much. I do, however, find it ironic that on the first day I noticed their presence. I also noticed it was snowing. Okay, so maybe it was really more of a flurry. Not really even noteworthy most winters. But there was actual white stuff falling from the sky! And we have not seen that much this season. I do hope my prediction of harsh, if late, winter storms does not come true. For mine and the daffodils sake.

Skiing & Tubing

My faithful followers have been complaining about my lack of insightful updates. While I know that your day just isn't complete without reading one of my witty anecdotes, my days have been more than complete without the writing of them. That's not to say I have been too busy to report. I have spent many a day in the last few months lounging on the couch reading/watching TV/surfing the web and generally avoiding the guilt over wearing pajamas for 24 hours straight. It has been a pretty lazy couple of months. Which I have both enjoyed and been ashamed of.

But the tides are changing. I sense a new beginning coming on. I can see my To-Do-List shrinking in my mental eye. March will be the month of productivity, adventure and fun. Not that I have any adventures planned. Or any fun either.

I did manage, in the last week of February, to hit the ski slopes and the tubing park. The first trip, to Bear Creek, was a day long adventure with Brandrew.* There was barely enough snow to cover the trails, and they were definitely very narrow at parts with bare trees and ground just one tiny mistake away. It was the hottest I have EVER been skiing. We were literally peeling off layers as we traveled down the slopes. For the first time on skis this year things went pretty well. Expect for learning that I am an incredibly slow skier. I was the first brave enough to navigate down a particularly treacherous looking portion of an intermediate slope. I felt as if my form was in good shape. But even if I was the first to start down a slope, with a good head start, I was always the last at the bottom. And it's not because I stop, I don't! I guess I just ski in slow motion.

The tubing trip was a night adventure to Roundtop with Matteah* (Mat-ay-a). I was not a fan of the conveyor belt lift. You had to stand! And hold your own innertube! Which actually wasn't the easiest thing because the tubes didn't stick to the belt. You actually had to hold on so it would drag along behind you. Of course, I am much too lazy for this nonsense, so I found a different way that didn't require the least bit of arm muscle. But what happened to the good old lifts where you sit on your tube and it pulls you up!?!

And why is it children are so obnoxious. One literally tried to drag her tube through a two foot space, which prompted me to pick it up and throw it after her. And one group of rebels couldn't decide how they wanted to tie their tubes together and thus sat holding up the line until I finally annouced 'ready, set, go!' and pushed them down the hill. Geez. All in all, these trips were successes, even though it felt like winter sports in spring weather.

Hopefully, March will bring more to tell. So thanks for continuing to stay tuned!

*I like to combine couples names the way they do for celebrities. I apologize. I know this annoys certain people.