November 20!

Another cheating day! I got out my camera to take pictures of some reimbursement forms for my health insurance company, because I don't have a scanner or a copier anymore. so, that's classy. Anyway, I found pictures that I took when I was in Oregon in May and never uploaded because I'm lazy. This is a picture of a girl who was at the Peter Iredale, which is by far my favorite shipwreck.

Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

So, seeing as how Lent is over, it's time to analyze how LP'oh11 went! The goal was to exercise at least a little bit every day, but since Lent doesn't include Sundays, that really means 6 days a week. If you count walking at least half a mile, which I think is legitimate, I probably averaged about 5 days a week, so that's pretty good!

I'm not going to lie, HealthMonth is probably the only reason I really did much of anything this month. It's amazing how motivated I am to do something just to get points that don't mean anything at all. It also helps me understand the appeal of 4square, I think. when I questioned its purpose one night about 11 months ago, someone told me "BUT YOU GET POINTS!" which I thought was dumb at the time, but now all I want is points points and fruits fruits.

Giant thunderstorm last night. The kind that sets off car alarms and pours down an Oregon week's worth of rain in 15 minutes.

Speaking of Oregon, in 3 weeks (so soon!) I am going there for 9 days. I am really getting excited even though it is going to be so chaotic - I don't really have anyone to take care of my cats, since last time I went home and left them in the care of my roommates, I came back a week later and they had no water, too much food, and their litterbox hadn't been cleaned the whole time I was gone. so I guess I might try to board them but that will be so expensive, on top of the $900 I am paying off on my credit card for the plane tickets.

For some reason I am really excited to go to Astoria this time. I am usually not at all excited because I don't really know anyone there anymore, but all I want to do is go see Peter Iredale and walk around in the rain and pick up earthworms and maybe even sneak out to Camp Kiwanilong and just kind of stare longingly at the locked gate. I was watching over Capital R's shoulder the other day while he was watching a YouTube about where is Chunk from the Goonies now (he's an entertainment lawyer because he couldn't act anymore once he grew up and got hot) and they of course showed clips of the Goonies and I got whiny looking at all the fog and trees.

Today is hot and muggy and started off miserably, but BiebzBear and I went to Peregrine and got a yummy brioche roll to share and a delicious latte for not sharing. Then we went to the park which I was dreading because in recent times Bear has been known to throw himself bodily into the mud, of which there is plenty, post-thunderstorm. But he did such a good job! This time all he wanted to do was go up and down the stairs on the play structure and play with the cars that some other kids brought, and he was fantastic at sharing and gave the cars back when I said it was time to go. Also he is starting to talk! He says "Haaww" when I am complaining about how hot it is, and I think he is determining when to say "more" versus when to say "again" and I swear I've heard him say "all done" and "blue" and "thank you." He does say "again" when he wants to read a book, I think for him it kind of means "please do this right now!" as well as "please do this one more time right now!" Anyway him talking is going to start making my life easier, I think.

I had the three horsechildren of the apocalypse for several hours on Friday, and while Captain Bananio napped, Zannah and Prince Phillip watched Sleeping Beauty so for a little bit it was just like old times. Captain Bananio, while the same age as Stellina, is much less comprehensible, but his clearest complete sentence is "HE PUNCHED ME" which I think says something about being the youngest of three.

I've just finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but haven't yet re-started Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so I am currently nursing a sore spot in my heart over the events on the astronomy tower.

Frogducks

There was a sportsball game this week, I wore my Yell-O and green to the bar and took shots when we scored touchdowns, which was sadly/luckily only twice. Sadly because we lost the game, luckily because I had to be at work at 8:30 the next day. Fun fact, it turns out the only yellow t-shirt I have is a camp shirt with a frog on it, but the frog and name of the camp are green, so I had the colors ok. Also, it is from Oregon, so I'm pretty sure it counts, even though it wasn't a UO shirt.
LOOK even Rhett wore the right colors [on his eyeballs].

HE HAS GOTTEN SO FAT. His 2011 resolution is to lose two pounds. We are [read: he is, through my enforcement] in full force of dieting, which I hope will be much easier in the spring when he is allowed to go outside again. Too cold for kitties right now!!

I wore through the butt of another pair of jeans :( I pretty much only have 3 pairs of jeans, and two that I wear on a regular basis. One pair from Target, and they don't really fit, and then there is my pair from GAP, and they now have a hole. So, that's a thing. I go through jeans faster and faster these days, every six months or so. maybe it has something to do with me being way more active in jeans than I ever was before. Running after children, of course.

Today was my first day with the newest batch of kidlets, and I have good news and bad news about that. Good news is that they're real real cute. Bad news is that they're real real cute. The boy is 21 months and big big huge, running around, talking all the time, excellent communication. He's so good that it kind of kills my previous rant about how Stellina is the Most Great Communicator Of All Time, OF ALL TIME! Wow, I can't believe I got a Reagan reference and a Kanye reference in that same phrase. Anyway, he is big. I used to sit him once a week when he was about 5 months old, and he was huge then, too. And super super drooly. The girl is about 10 weeks, so... tiny. Very tiny and very adorable. Henceforth, their names are: Big and Tiny.

Tomorrow is my first full day with Big and Tiny, today was just hanging around, meeting the kids (again), learning the ropes. Tiny is only awake for about an hour at a time, and Big takes a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day, so it shouldn't be a terribly stressful time.

Hopefully this will be the last introduction of kidlets, other than Imminent Space Monkey, of course. I am beginning to have too much going on, which is good because money is good, but I don't want to add any more stuff or it will begin to defeat the purpose of taking time off after school to chill the eff out. I already haven't been to ballet class in about 4 months because of taking extra work and needing time off and oh, seeing Capital R all the time.
And also, I don't know how much more Sesame Street I can handle.

New Things November-ish: Saturday the 34th of November

Some awesome New Things today! I went to IHOP.

AND IT WAS AWESOME.

LET ME TELL YOU.

It was extreem awesome. But there was a 45 minute wait, so first we had bloody marys and that was even more awesome!

(I have been to IHOP before, just not the brand new one in DC, so ... this is kind of a New Thing.)

Then I watched the most of a football game that I have ever watched! I watched a whole three quarters, before I had to leave for working times. It was great fun, except for the leaving. ALSO THE DUCKS WON... AGAIN. Woooo

Lastly, I let Stellina stay up WAY past her bedtime and watch an entire Sesame Street with me, because I was lonely, and I love her. We ate Honey Nut Cheerios together. We discussed her new big girl bed, which she is getting tomorrow, so that her old crib can be used for New Baby Space Monkey when he comes in March. We discussed her artwork on her brand new easel that she got for Hannukah, and we discussed how they learned about yelling in school yesterday (?!?!?), and we discussed how she had chicken for dinner, and we discussed how her haircut looks really fantastic. I've never been the cool babysitter and let kids stay up past bedtime, mostly because there is no point in letting kids under 2 stay up late, it only causes destruction and badness. Hopefully she will sleep late in the morning and give her mom and dad a break. Shhh.

Sunday is the last day of this past week, which I have lived through somehow. I don't know what happens tomorrow. Monday I have Baby Biebz from 9 to 5 and then the three horsechildren of the apocalypse (Zannah, Prince Philip, and Captain Bananio) from 6 until late???, and then the same thing again on Tuesday. So yes, I'll make bank between those two days. but I do not plan on being happy about it.

You Are Everyone

An important observation on the Winter Olympics.

Man, I really really love the Winter Olympics.

Speaking of places where skiing happens, my mom sent me this today:

ain't fair, you know

Statehood Day #151:

x 1098091283091810. When did Train get good?

Jake's Recipe for Falker Satherhood.

Stellaluna board book! I can't let Stellina exist any longer with this book in her possession. Especially since she'll probably know how to read by the time she turns 2, she's so wicked smart.

New Orleans guidebook. (heyyyy ladies I have bought us a guidebook)

DONUTS.

A single lol.

Wednesday plans to conquer tacos. and to pick up MARC tickets.

eta: I just ordered three new Moleskines! giftcards to evil giant chain bookstores are awesome when I don't have to save them for textbooks.

eta II: An excellent postcard to add to my collection! Someday I will get to send someone awesome some really cool postcards.

All these things have happened today.

Happiness: November 30

THING THIRTY:

Ok, today is the last day of Month of Happiness. Rough, right? so here we have a good one.

Stomping in puddles!!! wearing rain boots!!!

I was on my way to work today, and it was raining, and I was cranky a little bit mostly because I was going to work on the weekend. I stomped along the bridge over the Pike, which is the safer way for me to go to work albeit a little longer, because it doesn't involve me crossing 11 lanes of Death Traffic, but only 4 lanes of Death Traffic. there are big wide steps at the end of the bridge that lead down to the Rockville Town Centre (it's -re instead of -er, because the Rockvillains Rockvillians out there in 'burbtown are verrrry sophistique), which has a delicious California Tortilla, and also a movie theater, and some other stuff.

On the 7th step down, I could see that there was a puddle! and so I figured that it would be the perfect time to jump off the 6th onto the 7th. So I jumped with both feet/polka dotted boots.

Turns out the 7th Step Puddle was much deeper than I expected! Suddenly I was soaked up to my knees, and down inside my boots, and simultanously I remembered that I had experienced 7th Step Puddle previously, with a similar result... only at that time, I was in my Danskos and didn't splash, but did end up briefly standing in 2 inches of water.

I was dismayed for about 4 seconds, until I realized: I had just splashed in a big puddle! AWESOME.

Then I stomped in three or four more puddles on the way. None quite as deep, but still satisfactorily splashy.

I am incrimentally realizing how much I love it when it rains. It makes me cranky for a little while, until I realize how infrequently it does rain here. and really, that is what makes me cranky.

Washington DC, I command you to be more like Oregon!!!

Happiness: November 24

THING TWENTY-FOUR: what makes me happy today is combining multiple Happy Things!

Currently, I am working on Thing 18, Thing 22, and Thing 23, with a modified Thing 3 (I am reading ExpressNightOut, which is the online version of Thing 3's job, and it is this which is causing Thing 18).

I feel a little like an Oregon hippy transplanted to DC... oh wait!

Happiness: November 12

THING TWELVE: THIS makes me so. freaking. happy.

Woo Oregon!

Bartlet for America

Back in the District. My apartment is still super depressing, as it lacks furniture and sunlight. The first situation I plan on rectifying, but the second, I fear I can do nothing about.

I'm sitting in Katzen for the internet; I was waiting for Professor Abraham but gave up on that about an hour ago. So now I'm just here.

DC's hot and full of bugs. I love days like today, when there's no humidity; it feels almost like Central Oregon. I wish I had taken pictures when I was down there this summer. I only took pictures of the kids. I don't even think I have any on my phone.

Sunriver

I take that back, I have one. When I was driving down, I decided to take the Mercedes convertible (!) off of the highway in Sisters and see if I could find my old house. We lived there for I guess about 3 or 4 years when I was pretty little. I don't remember that much about it, other than that it was pink, and there was a huge air conditioning unit on the side, some ponderosas in the front yard, and the house number was 12345 McKenzie Drive, except that the numbers weren't in that order, they were mixed up.

I found the house, and it was for sale. $534,000. They've paved the driveway, painted the exterior (no longer pink, now classy brown with dark red), and ripped up the carpet and finished the floors. I grabbed a flier to give to my mom. I took out my phone, and took only one picture, of the deer napping shade of the the front yard.