My strange obsession is getting on the scale. Every day. Lots of times. All throughout the day. Over and over. Before a shower, after a shower. When I’m hungry. After I’ve eaten. Before and after a workout. When I have the stomach flu I get on it as I crawl back to bed. If I put my scale up on blocks, tied a bandana around my head, and turned on some 80′s music, it would qualify as a step aerobics workout. It’s like if I ask it enough times I’ll get the answer I want.

You see how there’s a piece missing from my scale? That’s from when I hurled it at the wall for giving me a wrong answer. If there were a PETA for small household appliances I would totally be on their shit list.

 I have a blog-friend, Anna, who does a new challenge every 30 days (she’s currently working on going outside more, over at http://inthenext30days.net). In that spirit I am going to NOT get on the scale for 30 days. Which might not actually turn out so well because in 30 days I’ll be just coming off of a 4th of July eating and drinking bender. (PS. holy cow, is it almost July? How did that happen?) .

 I can already see the Weight Watchers Online tracker thingy yelling at me in big red letters, YOU HAVEN’T TRACKED YOUR WEIGHT IN X NUMBER OF DAYS! Who knows, maybe they’ll even pay me a personal visit to make sure I’m ok. And ok I shall be. Because all the while I’m not doing my scale-stepping regimen, I will be diligently tracking my points. And when I do finally get on that scale in a month, well I’m counting on seeing a pretty happy number. 

Not long ago, the Faux Magazine Sellers came sweeping through the neighborhood. I was in the middle of verbally disciplining my kids when a couple of them did that cutesy little knock you know they do on the front door. So I opened the door, stared them down all bug-eyed, teeth-clenched and pinchy-faced (its a pretty image, I know) and growled,

WHAT.

Oh hi, we’re here with the pretend-whats-its-name organization that in some nonsensical way teaches us job skills like sales, marketing, first degree burglary and such, don’t want to disturb you but we’re trying to get something out of you today, donation, magazine subscription, preferably via credit card etc etc, oh and please don’t mind my buddy here looking over your shoulder casing your lovely home.

I AM SORRY, BUT I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR YOU RIGHT NOW. I AM QUITE BUSY.

Well ma’am, we are sorry if we’ve come at a bad time but…

LOOK. IF IT IS NOT BURNING, BLEEDING, OR BROKEN, I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT.

Well if you’ve just got a second…

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING THAT IS BURNING, BLEEDING OR BROKEN?

Um no…

THEN YOU NEED TO GO AWAY NOW. GOOD BYE.

(politely closes door)

I love it when that happens.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to sign up for the cancer parade. Or as the organizers like to call it, the Race for the Cure. Coming up on Sunday, June 2nd in Seattle. We walk, we wear pink, we hope it doesn’t rain. If you’re around, come join us, its fun!

Check out my dream team of walkers from 2009 (they’re much taller now):

And look, I even found you a coupon good through tonight

Yes, I just used the one cordless phone I could find in the house to call my cell to find it. And then I used my cell to call my house to find the other three cordless phones. Two down, one to go. Hope to find the others before their batteries die.

And this, my friends, is why I can never drop my land line and have only cell phone service.

Lucky Me: I am SO excited to be getting not one but TWO new babies in my family this year, courtesy of my brother-in-law and his wife, and my cousin and his wife. They are three time zones away, which means I won’t get to do any baby cuddling but I WILL get to do some baby shopping, just as soon as someone tells me if I’m shopping for boys or girls (ahem).

Lucky You: A friend of mine over at It’s Fitting has a contest this week that you’re going to want to enter if you have an impending baby and baby mama to shop for. Take a look at her list of top favorite baby things, enter the contest, and cross your fingers that one of us wins all this great loot.

Lucky moms in Haiti: And whether or not I win, I’m going to be doing my baby shopping online here at Haiti Babi. Haiti Babi was created by a couple of amazing college students as a way to give moms in Haiti jobs knitting and crocheting high quality artisan baby blankets, empowering them to earn a living and take care of their family. A friend of mine sits on their board so I get to hear first – well second -hand about the great work that this little company is doing. One of these days I think I just might have to have her write a little guest post here and let you know more.

Happy five-shopping-days-left-until Mother’s Day!

Why yes, they did. In the car on the way to school they – once again – called me out for having 50 things on the handy dandy to-do list in my phone. All for today. Most of them rolled over from previous days of 30 and 40 things.

This morning the Short One challenges me to have the list down to ZERO by the time I get them after school. The Blonde One says there’s no way that will happen, and there’s a better likelihood of me spending the day adding 50 more things to said list. Dammit Blonde One, ITS ON!

1) Rollover IRA
2) Submit gas receipts for refund
3) Upload 2012 photos to Shutterfly and make a photo book and/or CD
4) Rosetta Stone
5) Get carpet remnant for closet
6) Make drinks date with I and P
7) Book airline tickets to Boston in June
8) Plan a dinner using my tagine
9) Do the new barre dvd I ordered 5 weeks ago
10) Get invisible bra strap
11) Replace magenta printer cartridge
12) Go through boxes of ‘memory’ stuff in basement
13) Put last 2 years of school papers in binders
14) Fix the sync function on Neat Receipt cloud thingy
15) Get spring break frequent flyer miles into kids’ accounts
16) Do flex spending for blonde one’s contacts
17) Dermatologist appointment
18) Find a go-to appetizer recipe and weekend menu for boating season
19) Find a go-to dinner party menu for summer
20) Create a credit card using strategy for collecting the most reward points
21) Download, sort, post, etc pictures from Spring Break
22) Register kids for basketball camp
23) Thursday Box, that box of paperwork I keep pretending I’m going to do on Thursdays but keep ignoring
24) Mail $14 to Aunt J
25) Birthday present for 3 year old nephew (or is he 4?)
26) New running socks and pants at the new running store
27) Costco
28) Decide do I want a Soda Stream for mother’s day? Or just buy Dry Soda?
29) Find a go-to appetizer for drop in kids/friends and buy ingredients
30) Massage Heights
31) Scan Feb 2013 into Neat receipt thingy
32) Make one of the appetizer recipes from my Chef Shop class
33) Blog about Take Your Daughter to Work Day, the name of the Father/Daughter Dance, and how I am sick of ‘systems’ that presume that ‘they’ can and will do a better job than individuals at parenting and other such things and how they regulate it to be so
34) Join PNW bloggers
35) Bellingham half marathon Sept 29, Victoria half on Oct 13
36) Blog the cow game
37) Watch Portlandia
38) Watch Mad Men
39) Look into costs for expanding business
40) Register Race for the Cure
41) Start half marathon training on Weds so long runs are on Mondays, put in calendar!
42) Spend 10 minutes per room tidying up the house
43) Change lightbulb in the bathroom
44) Do some laundry
45) Grocery shop
46) Prep veggies in the fridge
47) Finish setting up NetVibes account – sounds dirty, its not
48) Thursday box – again, because clearly it needs to be done
49) Q-tips
50) Post breakfast schedule in kitchen
51) ZERO things left on this list at 3:35 today ☺)

She’s totally going to have to take me out for Menchie’s when I win.

I was watching the Today Show this morning (something I rarely do) when I was treated to the worldwide launch of a new album by Steve Martin and Edie mrs-paul-simon-she’s-not-aware-of-too-many-things Brickell.

Here’s a YouTube video of the song they’re debuting from their new album, yes they have an entire album. It’s called “Love Has Come For You”.

The opening lyrics:

She had a baby with a man from the bank,
He was married with a son.

And all I could think was now there’s one more up side to gay marriage…very little chance of an illegitimate child from an affair.

You know, Tiffany, the person who posted the 31 Day Blog Challenge. And you thought I forgot. Perfectly understandable assumption because with me, its often true. Oh but lucky you, today I’ve got more answers to Tiffany’s Question(s) of the (past few) Day(s).

Day 4 – Best Childhood Memory: Its hard to figure a best, but here’s a funny one. Well it was to me. When I was around 12, we moved to a humungous house. My dad was a minister and the house comes with the job. As an adult mortgage-payer, I’m thinking maybe I should have chosen a career with a similar perk. The wife of the minister who lived there before us had a huge collection of hats. As in British Royal Family type hats. Actual hats, not the cousins-from-the-wedding fascinator kind.

(photo by Daily Mail)

One day while my sister and I were up in the attic playing with the hats, I found this one yellowish-brownish number that when I put it on her, made her look like a mushroom. So I told her that her fashion model name would be Mush R. Ooom. Brilliant, I know. She was totally delighted with her fancy new name for a good 4-5 seconds:

“Mush R. Oooom. I like it.”

“Hey wait a minute….”

It still makes us laugh. Good times.

Day 5 – Favorite Movies You Never Get Tired of Watching – I don’t particularly like movies, but if I had to choose, it would be The Notebook. And Sixteen Candles. And probably Gone With The Wind. Which I still own on VHS and therefore can’t watch anymore, but I like looking at the picture on the box.

Now if you’d asked me about television shows, that is totally easy. The Brady Bunch and Gillian’s Island, which I’m currently subjecting my kids to (to which I’m currently subjecting my kids??), courtesy of Netflix. The Love Boat, which we watched for a solid week before our cruise last summer. Never did find Isaac aboard. But Captain Steubing, I mean Captain Henk, sounded just as personable on the loudspeaker as he does on tv. Fraiser, whose view, I have learned since relocating to Seattle, does not actually exist. Modern Family, The Middle, The Office…oh yeah, it’s a good thing tv shows wasn’t the question for Day 5.

Day 6 – Your Last Random Act of Kindness: Well now that would be bragging now, wouldn’t it. Though to be perfectly honest, I can’t really think of one. Unless you count deciding not to comment on my friends’ political fb posts. Considering what I was planning to say, I would think that NOT commenting counts as a tremendous act of kindness.

I almost had one in Vegas last weekend. A six month pregnant bride and groom came into the 24 hour restaurant for a burger and sat in the booth next to us. We were feeling kind of bad for them that their wedding meal was at Mr. Lucky’s and were about to pay their tab. But upon closer inspection, we saw he had an iphone, her dress looked kinda spendy, and they looked closer to 30 than 20. So we decided that they were just stopping in for a bite to eat before the big event and didn’t pull the trigger. It’s the thought that counts though, right?

Day 7 – What’s Your Dream Job: That’s easy. Trophy wife. I was going to say lottery winner, but they typically end up back in the trailer within a year or so.

Day 8 – Biggest Pet Peeve: Partially closed dresser drawers send me into a freaking tizzy.

Coming soon, though I cannot promise how soon, Days 9-13. Spoiler alert, Day 9 is What’s On Your Bucket List. It may take me a while because first I have to write one. Any suggestions for what should be on it?

PS. See other, possibly more interesting, answers at Tiffany’s blog here.

Here’s a little getting-to-know-you experiment going on this month that I saw about on Pinterest last week. Every day there is a new thing to share about yourself. The first thing I will share is that I am usually running late. Five days, in this case.

Day 1: My self portrait

This is from my wedding at the turn of the century. So much younger and skinnier. Its amazing what 13 years, two kids, and a camera diffuser can do. Yes, I know there’s no husband in the picture. He was there, I promise. This head shot was cropped from a photo of me and two of my girlfriends who I never get to see except when we do family trips every couple of years. And this coming weekend I get to go see them in Vegas! The weather will suck, just like it did in southern Vermont in March of 2000, but it’ll be fun just the same. And this time, none of us will be pregnant. Phew!

I picked a wedding photo for my self portrait because I’m in this secret Facebook group (you didn’t know there was such a thing, did you? Ah Ha!) and yesterday everyone was posting their wedding photos. I think I might start that on my own Facebook page soon.

Moving on…Five Random Facts About Me.
1) Sticking with the wedding theme, at the reception, two of our guests, drinking actuaries, played the piano and sang show tunes. You cannot buy that kind of entertainment.
2) I like lists. Proof is this guest post of 10 Random Thoughts I did over at Being5 a few weeks ago (thanks Katie!).
3) I’ve been texting longer than you. In the 1990’s I sold what we called “nationwide alphanumeric pagers”, which were basically Blackberries without apps or phone call abilities. As employees, we had unlimited messaging, so yes, we invented texting. And, incidentally, sexting. Not me. That was Larry.
4) I am so commitment-phobic I don’t have a favorite color.
5) But when I’m forced to choose, I choose red.

Day 2: My favorite quote: That’s a hard one. I did a whole month of favorite quotes here last May. My personal favorite is “No evidence of vascular or lymphatic invasion.” The one I’m currently chanting to myself on a regular basis is “Lose weight in the kitchen, get fit in the gym.”

Day 3: What makes me happy: Too big of a question. I’m going to skip this one. Because I can. The freedom alone to skip that question makes me happy.

Day 4: Best childhood memory: You’re going to have to wait until tomorrow. You wouldn’t want me to tempt fate and actually catch up, would you?

Your turn! Share your answers to the question(s) of the day in the comments. And read other people’s answers here: