"Don't argue with destiny. It will kick your ass."

So I was on the fence about painting the tub teal until I saw these cabinet knobs and then I decided that I would not have found these knobs if I wasn't meant to paint that tub teal.  I'm going to test drive some teals this weekend, before I learn how to use the grinding wheel and resurface it.
     And then I decided I liked this chandelier from anthropologie but it's 4800 dollars and since that is more than our roof will cost I'm going to try to make my own.  I picked out a cheap base from IKEA and I'm busy flattening old flatware...I'm pretty excited about it.  Matt keeps calling it the "fork-alier" so I think he's excited about it too.  I think I'm going to make it messier than the one from the shop, more forks and things closer together so it's a little more abstract.  I'll put up pictures when I get further along.

"Medieval Fight Night two nights in a row? Man, my codpiece just got tighter."

We bought a tub for the house we don't have yet.  It's a vintage clawfoot and it's in really good shape.  A friend had been looking out for one for me and he found one and now it's ours.  It was a bad time in terms of prioritizing the budget but a good time in that it cost 90 percent less than the tub in the budget.  And it also needs to be painted.  I'd like to get the painting and grinding and cleaning done before the house gets into full swing.  It's something I can do probably better than banging nails and cutting timber joints.

I'm thinking of painting it a teal because I love teal and I really want to have some color in my very wood filled barn style house.  The problem is that I don't have a house yet and it might look awful and I'd kind of have to plan the whole bathroom around the giant blue tub.  I suppose the worst that could happen is that I might choose to repaint it later and have to do all the work again.

I guess I'm officially starting to decorate a house that isn't built yet.  I'm on the hunt for faucets and shower water hook up things and a sink and a whole bunch of things for the kitchen we need to find on the cheap.  I'll be at the ReStore every week from now till forever and searching ideas for cabinets and hardware.  Here we go, wallets at the ready!

"twice a week after work, I put on a totally realistic bear costume and hang out in the park"

So far I've lost 5 pounds by not eating carbs at dinner.  I hate cutting out things like that but it's not like south beach where it's verboten all the time, I just don't have spaghetti and bread for dinner...but I might still have it for lunch.  I made a giant batch of veggie chili for dinners and I have black bean soup planned for next week and spinach and white beans for some time in the future.  And when we pick up our new freezer I'll pop the individual servings in there and mix it up a little.  We're very excited about our new freezer and the new vintage bathtub, it's been a big week here...buying two expensive new house things.  This building a new house is starting to get expensive.  Maybe that's why I'm doing so well with my diet regime...too stressed out to eat!

"They insist the worst people can call it is "indifferent."

It's wonderful to know that I don't have pre-diabetes like everyone else I know.  It was starting to get a little worrying, all the pre-diabetic people I know coming out of the woodwork but we did this healthy consultation at work and my blood sugars are fine.  I'm massively relieved and now all I have to worry about is the paranoia and not the diabetes.

The weekend flew by and this morning if coming along slowly and beautifully.  We walked for an hour and a half and had breakfast and chased a porcupine up a tree (I don't know if chased is the right word, everyone was moving rather slowly considering the whole prey/predator thing) it's been a very busy morning and I still have twenty minutes before I have to leave for work.

I lost a pound last week and it's continuing to go down but I'm not thinking about it until next week.  I already weighed this week and I'm not doing it again until next week.  I'm not getting sucked into that weighing every day and going insane when it's a little bit up thing.  I'm all over that.  If it's down again next week I'll be happy and happy the week after that too but I'm not going to postulate about how skinny I will be if x happens every week for y weeks.  I'm leaving it at happy to fit in my smaller jeans because all of the jeans that fit me have holes.

"That's right. Once a month they send us a new cadaver whether we're finished with the old one or not."

Jolie refuses to learn her lesson in regards to porcupines.  I just spent a very unpleasant ten minutes holding her down and plucking the quills out.  It only took ten minutes because I drugged her first but I still lost my shit at the end and sat on her to get the last one out.  It's always the last one where you're so relieved to be almost done and then it takes another hour to get that last one.  I confess that I don't handle the frustration well and if I had kids they'd always be in therapy.  And I ripped my skirt.  I hate that.  I guess I should have used more drugs.

I lost two pounds planting all those trees.  And since Matt did most of the work he lost three.  I'm working really hard on keeping to my meal plans and avoiding sugar because it makes me feel terrible when I have too much.  I'm keeping up with my pilates and I've added squats and some interval training to my morning dog walk/hike.  A walk doesn't seem like enough calories but a hike seems like too many.  But a walk implies flatness and even breathing and our walks definitely aren't even.  Much like measuring food and calories, getting a real idea of calories burnt during exercise is important too and I'm terrible at that.  So much to work on.

Every day you shower and every day I have to scent you again

Every year we plant apple trees and every year we don't get any better at it.  It hurts A LOT every year.  No matter how much we learn from the last year or plan for the current year there is still a lot of digging and lugging and ouching.  We also mulched and fertilized the other thirty trees and I guess that's why I hurt so much.  We plant 10-12 at a time which doesn't seem so many but when you do it every year you end up with a whole bunch and when you walk around to all those trees with heavy bags of poo it is really unpleasant.  

We're very much hoping to get an apple this year.  I'm prepared to do just about anything to make one of those trees grow fruit.  If I have to lug poo around to all those trees every day I want an apple this year.  Just one from all this work and time.  We really don't want to wait for apples until we're dead, as per why we try to plant so many when we're "young".  I have hope because we did get a cherry last year, it was beautiful until the birds ate it. 

Our gardening plans are a lot smaller this year because we plan to build a house and being humans who work day jobs we can only do so much.  A lot of the food we grew last year lasted all winter.  We still have cans of beets and plenty of potatoes and one last carrot in the fridge.  We plan to grow all these things again this year but that's pretty much it.  So just the one apple would be pretty awesome as far as gardening prowess.  Even a tiny one.  A very tiny one would be fine.  As long as the birds don't get it.

"I wear very expensive shoes made from very soft animals."

Matt just discovered petfinder for himself.  We adopted Jolie from petfinder but I'm the one who oooh'd and aaaah'd for days at all the cute puppies.  He was looking for the pictures of some dogs his co-worker is adopting from the south (Yay for him, that's awesome!) and he discovered they have sheep and cows and all kinds of animals on there.  He had the best time and he really wants to adopt a cow from california who just retired from being a teaching animal at a vet school.  I'm not sure the california cow adoption thing is going to work out but I'm happy that he discovered how much fun petfinder can be.

I don't know what's going on with the shower except my anxiety level is ridiculously high and now we have easter.  Can I tell you I completely forgot about easter?  Because I did.  My mother was a nun but seriously easter means nothing to me beyond giving children candy.  Matt might be working, which he's never done on a holiday in the history of ever, but it's actually true and I don't think MIL believed me.  I mean, it's not even her house she's inviting us to.  You can't really invite people to someone else's house. That's not really how it works.  If the sil wanted us there she'd invite us and not half an hour before so i guess they don't want us there.

"Can't fight the seether"

And so begins another post in which I try to regain my humanity.  It turns out that I am a jerk.  I hate realizing that, I really do.  I got an invitation to a party and I'm pissed about it.  That makes me a jerk.  A party thrown for a person by a person who loves her and who invited me and still the whole thing makes me want to break things and stomp my feet and I don't know what but I don't want to go.  I really don't want to go.  I survived the wedding and the you should get married you're missing out but I just don't think I can survive the baby shower.  And Matt won't be there to deflect the ignorant advice and share in all the getting judged by strangers.  

I wasn't expecting a baby shower for the THIRD baby so I wasn't prepared for this, although that seems very foolish on my part.  I really don't want to hurt my mil's feelings so I think the best I can do right now is say that I can't wait to go and then develop a terrible cold that I don't want the mother to be to catch.  I am not a good enough person to sit through an afternoon of baby shower games and hearing how selfish I am for not having children.  I am deeply flawed and weak and so mean spirited that I can't either be genuinely happy for the family or fake it reasonably well.  

I wish I could be that person who can fake it and I'm not sure what that means, is that something I should aspire to?  Can you change yourself and be a person who sees sunshine and daisies all the time because that would be awesome.  I mean, generally speaking that's the kind of person I hate but then maybe it's because I'm ridiculously jealous of the daisy people.  I wish I could spend money I don't have and raise children without encouraging them to learn to read and have yet more babies I can't afford and not worry about any of it but I can't.  

I can't not worry about any of that stuff and I believe that I will never be able to not worry about it.  I've been doing a lot better since going to the spa, my friend saved my life with that trip because before that weekend everything made me mad and eventually even your sweet boyfriend starts to hate you when you yell all the time.  I haven't been mad enough to lose sleep between then and receiving this invitation and I don't want to let things get that bad again.  

I am hoping blogging will help and I apologize in advance for being so angry about a baby shower because I know that it is not ok to have anger about a baby shower.  Everyone is happy about the baby and buying gifts for the baby and doing everything possible for the baby and the mother and there is no earthly reason that that should make me angry.  It is not ok for me to feel that way and I know it and I have no idea of how to resolve it.  My wonderful savior of a friend who has her own painful baby shower issues said I don't have to go and I'm certain that everyone will have a better time without me or at the very least not notice my absence except for my mil who wants us all to be happy and get along and be the brady bunch in real life.  I really want to know why I can't find it within myself to do that for her, even for a few hours.  

I thought for a while that keeping boundaries on what I was able to give would be the best thing to help me feel better but it's not helping and I'm not better.  I'm not sure what to do now.

you take the one year off blogging and you miss everything

I've been out of things for a long, long time.  I meant to write this long thing about the spa and officer handsome at the border patrol but I don't know I guess I just don't make time for blogging anymore.  It's a shame because he was very handsome and charming and the spa was wonderful including the food.  It was really great not to do anything and to have the only time you have to worry about the time is meal time.  I didn't realize how wonderful it would be to not have to cook or worry about what anyone else needed.  It was very quiet with no tv's and no telephones.  Right now the dryer is drying and the washer is washing and I'm watching the fourth season of madmen and there are a bunch of men downstairs fixing a transmission and it's the opposite of quiet and peaceful.

Since then we had a hectic week and another weekend away and a very long car trip to Vermont.  I have laundry to fold and bread to bake but I'm sitting here blogging because it's been a very long time and I think a lot of the reason I am so stressed out all the time is because I lost my outlet when I stopped blogging.  I really need to write down words and let them go and it doesn't work so well on paper.  I don't know why, maybe because they aren't actually gone.  They're still in my notebook hanging around.    

It turns out that change is really hard and I'm trying to do things that make me feel better and that should be easy but it's inexplicably difficult.  The short story is that I'm trying and I'll be blogging more and it will probably be navel gazing drivel but c'est la vie.  I honestly don't care and I'm willing to try anything in order to get more perspective on things and release my jaw from the uptight position.

Don't make me get the hose!

can't believe it's been a month. Seriously I can't. It's been such a hard month I can't even express it. We're hoping for better things and easier days and medication for this anxiety disorder I'm nursing. Being too stressed to eat is good for the diet though. I ate three dove ice cream bars this week and still list a pound! Whoooo empty calories!

A friend and I are taking a fitness and wellness vaction this weekend. I'm expecting something along the lines of fat camp but in french so it'll be a charming fat camp. Au revoir Les croissants...

"You had a problem in your life and who stepped up to help you? Math."

A lot of things are making me grouchy this weekend.  I'm a grouchaholic and it's pissing me off.  I'm pissed off that I'm in a bad mood, that's how bad I need therapy.  Matt and I were reviewing our finances and it seems we spend one of my paychecks just getting to work every month...which makes us mad.  We spend enough money in gas to rent a place in bar harbor and walk to work.  Seriously, how annoying is that?  Grrr Grrr Grrr.  I'm just not in a reasonable frame of mind lately, not even close.  I really want to be one of those people who just drinks beer and has babies even when they have no money and doesn't worry about things like the gas supply and working so far from home but alas, I'm not that person and thinking about things like that really make me want to build a shelter and buy some guns.  I worry the crap out of caring for my dogs and cats and chickens in an emergency...if I had a child my brain would explode I'm absolutely certain.  I'd probably have to be committed, probably I should be committed now and save all that traveling.  Sorted.

So, Rebecca ran an awesome half marathon because she is a kick ass princess.  I'm really impressed and proud and she's just awesome and way less neurotic than me so hop over and give her some love because half a marathon is a damn long way to run.

I didn't run any marathons, not even like a quarter marathon.  The only marathonic related activity I had this weekend was the cleaning of my urine soaked house.  Old cat hates new cat, or us, or the sofa or has some serious bladder control issues because that bitch destroyed our crappy but formerly odorless Ikea sofa with only her urine.  She has a black belt in peeing, seriously.  It put all of us in a bad mood and we had to trash the cushions.  Now I have to make my own because we can't afford a new cheap Ikea sofa especially if we can't sort out the urinator.  I scrubbed the floor in two of our three rooms just to be absolutely sure we don't become those people with the pee house that makes their friends cry.  We really don't want to be those people.

Grudgingly as I don't want to admit the good pieces of news from this weekend, I did lose a pound.  And I made a really very tasty vegan chocolate cake that Matt couldn't believe was genuinely vegan.  I proceeded to add whipped cream and chocolate mousse and turn the whole thing in to lunch sized trifles but the slices we had virgin were very good.  I just really needed to use up that whipping cream or I'd have left it as was.  We also snowshoed 2000 calories each day.  I did anyway.  Dude, there is no option because the twice a week snow storms are back and there is officially no other way to walk the doggies.  We're all worn out from the extra exercise, especially the furries who have the luxury of napping 20 hours a day.  My quads could cut glass they're so awesome, or is it diamonds...or is the whole comparison completely wrong?  Whatever, they're John Basedow awesome, that's how awesome they are.  It looks like there will be compulsory snowshoeing through May at this rate so maybe the rest of me will catch up.  Basedow all the way, baby!

Things I am blocking out:

When we came home tonight Matt went in to turn on the lights and I stayed in the car with the dogs for just a minute while he got the house opened up.  And then the car started sliding.  You might remember the time we both slid down the driveway, it was no fun.  This was worse.  It would seem that every few years we get a ton of snow and then a ton of ice and then rain...which bites.  Seriously, I am so angry at rain right now.  Obviously I'm not dead but my heart is still pounding.  I couldn't get to the brake, the keys were gone so I couldn't steer from the passenger side and by then I was so freaked out I didn't even think about the emergency break I was just trying to get us all out.  You know how fred flintstone stops his car with his feet.  It was just like that but totally less effective.  I could only get one foot out because of my stupid purse and other crap so I just started yelling for Matt.  I don't think I've ever seen him run that fast, especially on that ice.  It's a minor miracle he didn't slide and fall behind the car and get run over or something.  It's more of a miracle the more I think about it, I'm totally friending Jesus on facebook.  

Matt got the driveway sanded and the car moved but you can still smell the burnt rubber and my sphincter will never be the same.  Add to that a very unpleasant week at work and one very apologetic man who asked if I was having a baby and I don't know what you get...there was supposed to math what with the adding but I don't know where I was going with that because my brain just doesn't work anymore.  No room at the inn.  And a baby?  Seriously?  I told him I was just fat and the look on his face was almost worth the embarrassment.  He said his wife is always telling him to keep his mouth shut and probably that's a wife worth listening to because dude, that's just the dumbest thing you can say to a woman kind of ever.

Anyway, this weekend had better be awesome and if it rains again I'm taking up dark magic because I'm seriously on the edge.  Seriously, seriously, seriously.

"We all wish we were worms, Lem, but that's never going to happen."

Half of the ladies at work are on weight watchers now and the other half spent all of last week eating the valentine's day chocolate.  Guess which half I'm part of.  It's a long week working full time short staffed and chocolate isn't really the answer but we can't seem to help it.  It'll be a relief to have all the candy gone on monday.

I'm making Matt his valentine's day treat tonight in order to end the madness tomorrow.  It has to be a clean break from all the candy, sugar, chocolate nonsense.  I'm not doing weight watchers again because it's way too much money for what I get out of it but I am using my fitness pal to keep an eye on things.  It seems a lot easier than sparkpeople, especially if you eat a lot of the same meals.  That is my main focus right now, automating meals and snacks.  Knowing exactly what you're going to eat and just doing it makes all the difference.  I'm not trying to be perfect just to do the same things every day because that's what works best for me.  Now that I accept that maybe I can accept responsibility for all my other choices.

In other news, did I mention we adopted a new cat?  His name is Leo and he was being fostered at my work.  He was hit by a car and his owner chose not to do anything about it...the shelter asked if they could have him and put a cast on his broken leg.  He still sits a little funny but he's adorable and the dogs LOVE him more than anything ever and he eats everything.  He ate knox's peanut butter kong, stole it right from him, took a bite out of Matt's chocolate chip cookie and ate chopped cabbage right off the chopping block when I was making cole slaw.  Cabbage, seriously?  He is the weirdest cat but we love him and the woofs are enjoying the winter a lot more with a kitty to keep them busy.  Chairman meow will never admit it but the new cat takes the pressure off of her and she gets a lot more freedom with the dogs preoccupied.

This is a picture of his first day at work.  He has huge amber eyes which make him look permanently surprised...like he had a bad facelift.  It's hard to tell how tiny he is in this photo but holding him is like holding air.  He just stole a candy cane I didn't even know we had and carried it into the bedroom and now he's napping with the dogs...he's definitely one of the gang.

" Look, you're angry again."

Because this is all I do anymore, pictures of things I want for the house that I probably can't afford.

These are a few of the big and small items we want to put in the house.  It strikes me I'm missing the claw foot tub, I'm shocked I don't have that bookmarked but it's probably the one thing we won't be using the interwebs to get, in some way or form.  The fridge and range are 50's models.  The woodstove is the vermont bun baker...a cooking woodstove I'm really looking forward to trying.

The faucets are things I'm looking for similar items, the door handle I really like and since we aren't going to need that many doors I'm going to spring for the real deal.  The pill box toilet is awesome and REALLY pricey so that might be a pipe dream, I also found kits to make any toilet a high tank water closet type toilet...you should've seen the MIL's face.

The porcelain shower head is cool but probably not what we'll go with...shower massage is not an heirloom technology.  The claw foot shower is seriously awesome and probably something we'll spring for because it's so unique and beautiful.  Next to the shower is a drawer and cabinet pull we saw on Burn Notice and loved, we're definitely going to find those!





 

"Darn your sinister attraction"

We have been fostering a very cute kitty named Leo for the weekend.  He's staying at the bank during the week looking for a new home and at the weekend he's all ours.  The dogs think he's the best present they ever got.  They have a lot of fun sniffing each other and napping.  Chairman Meow seems not to care all that much except when she looks at new kitty you can tell she wishes she had a gun.  The dogs are too busy to notice old kitty and new kitty who runs and plays is a lot more fun.  Matt keeps saying what a cool cat he is but won't actually admit to wanting to keep him.  I swear I didn't mention anything about keeping him first, I absolutely swear.

It's a bad time financially as we come to terms with December's Discover card bill.  Car insurance and Christmas, even though we didn't spend that much, was a huge bill even before all the vet visits.  So I'm on cheap skate mode.  I made a lot of red beans and rice for lunches and matt's got a freezer full of stews and chili's.  I'm trying to buy nothing except the necessities for as long as possible to get through the pinch and then we have a house to save for so it's probably a good habit to practice the cheap.

I've been looking at all kinds of house stuff recently and the numbers are just insane.  How in the world do cabinet pulls cost that much, seriously?  Hardware and door handles and windows and sinks, dude.  Expensive.  We're trying to choose quality things so we won't have to do it again but the urge to pick something cheap when you see the prices is so strong.  How much does a toilet have to cost, seriously.

"Going to the doctor is your answer for everything"

Today's quote comes from my co-worker who was actually bleeding from the ears when we told her to go to the doctor.  In all seriousness this woman should be married to a doctor with the medical emergencies that she's had to live with.  Her birthing stories should be included in every health ed. class on earth...but probably it would cause an apocalyptic population decline even without the one where she needed reconstructive surgery.  She is kind of famous for not going to the doctor until she's on the very brink of death (once with grave's disease and once with appendicitis) which I guess since she's not actually dead must have worked out for her.

I have kind of the same attitude too.  Unless there is copious blood or unconsciousness I usually follow the "give it some time" theory of medical action.  The actionless action.  The sans action method of healing.  I blame my mother, who allowed me to suffer with more than one chronic condition before being shamed into action by my siblings, for instilling in me the belief that going to the doctor isn't important.  I think probably she just didn't think we were important and that it had nothing to do with doctors at all but who knows.

The point is that medical attention is just never my first thought and I don't know how to fix that because that impulse to not go to the doctor is totally wrong.  Especially when it isn't me that is sick.  Yesterday (exactly 24 hours after seeing the vet for routine dog maintenance) Jolie's eye started to look a little red.  It started to look red after a walk where there was much wrestling, which there always is, but Matt noticed Jo made an ouchy noise at one point.  It happens on occasion that Knox will accidentally hurt her and she'll let him know, and then proceed to pound him even harder, but yesterday she just came inside and slept.  When she woke up she was a little teary and noticeably swollen and we thought "uh oh, he must have got her eye".  So we trimmed his claws and made her a cold compress and it didn't look any worse when we left to do errands.*

When we came back it was not cool and we felt like assholes.  Did you ever see Cannonball Run?  Do you remember the doctor?



What about now?   This is what she looked like, but redder and pussier and furrier.  It's really that bad.  So of course I googled it while I was looking up the emergency vet number and of course it said your dog will go blind unless you go to the vet before the redness appears so we packed everyone up and dug out the credit cards and went to the emergency vet.

We were all nervous and worried and it was snowing and we were forced to drive 30 miles an hour in half an inch of snow which will make anyone consider violence even without a slowly blinding dog in the back seat.  So we get there and the first person we see used to work at our vet.  So yay.  They were all really nice and the word that a collie was in the building spread like fire and everyone came out to see Knox.  Probably they don't get to cuddle that many healthy dogs and he loves showing off his belly and poking people with his nose so they all had a good time while Jolie hid under our legs.

The doctor was really sweet and gave her numbing drops to look at the eye but whenever they touched her head to get a closer look she freaked out.  In the end we had to sedate her and I watched while she was muzzled and sedated and the doctor checked out all over her eye...and then in her mouth.  She had her tongue all pulled out like a cartoon and would you believe her eye was popping out of her head because of something she ate?  She got something wedge over her gum that caused an injury at some point and caused a puss filled trauma so huge that it was bubbling up through her eye tissue and pushing her eye out.  Yes, it's that gross.

She won't eat or take her pills because her mouth hurts and she can't take walks for a week but she's enjoying resting on the bed and getting petted.  We're full of guilt, half for letting it go when there was no way that was going to get better on it's own and half for blaming Knox who was as innocent as he always is.  We're going to have to buy them both a pony if we survive the emergency vet bill.

* I hate us right now, you don't even know.  

"catholicism, the faith may fade but the guilt lasts forever"

'Bout time to blog eh?  It's a new year and all.  I should have at least one post a year.  That would be good right.  The purging continues and christmas is a good time to do that.  Who bought me a shower cap and why?  And what do I do with it?  I'm not keeping a shower cap because it was a christmas present, seriously.  A lot of our other christmas presents were consumable or wearable or appliances so I have to make room for them.  The fryer in particular is important to store...so we can make donuts and french fries and donuts.  We also got a grill and thank god that doesn't go in the house because dude, no room.

It's nice to have the cooking and baking part of christmas over.  I'm done with creaming butter and sugar for awhile.  Well, probably a week when matt will need cookies again but I'm enjoying the break.  It's also nice to have the mindless eating of baked goods part over too.  We got a ton of cookies and what not at work and dude when it's slow those stupid awful cookies look great and I have eaten a ton because I'm just not on my game.  Normally I'm pretty good at not eating crappy things I don't really like just because they're there but boredom at work is hard for me.

Another start to a new year and another quest to lose twenty pounds.  I mean officially it would be wrong to start the year without at least saying i want to lose weight.  In real life I'm not sure that's a real goal for the new year.  I might be over saying I want to lose weight every year and then not.  A real goal would be to eat more fruit and vegetables and that I can work on.  It's a smoothie for breakfast and apple for snack week which is a relief after all those cookies.  It's also a cook for yourself week which means that I'm making myself meals instead of eating matt's side dishes.  It's all easier in a clean, organized house and I have high hopes for a good week.

"Teach a man to insult, he can hurt people who tease him because he never learned to fish"

I have the day off today because I am a bad cat mom.  Chairman meow is old and the dogs keep her from scratching to keep her nails under control so the last time we trimmed her nails, saturday, we found two ingrown nails.  I was terrified she would have to have those toes removed or the nails removed or the removal of something that would be expensive and painful and guilt causing.  I took the whole day off just incase I needed to sit in a waiting room and weep and lo it was fine.  They trimmed her nails, they aren't even infected, and it only cost 70 bucks.  I was expecting more guilt and more cost and more pain all around so I'm very relieved.  And I got my last christmas present made.  I just have to wrap two more things and I'm done.

I'm not quite done my purging but I'm getting a lot closer and we're all liking the house a lot more.  I keep finding more and more things to take to goodwill and say goodbye to and it's awesome.  I'm so glad I watched hoarders, I genuinely didn't see our tendencies for what they were before seeing those sad sad people on tv.  The living room and the kitchen are looking better and now I have to work on the bedroom and finish up in the bathroom.  It is definitely one of those jobs that never gets done, there is always something else you really need to say goodbye to.  I would be proud if I hadn't lived under the weight of all this junk for SO LONG but I guess it's never too late to get your shit together.

"like a fawn in the woods, but tough, like a fawn in the woods with a machine gun."

So, it's been awhile.  Work has been interesting for both of us and my birthday is coming and my mil is weird and I guess I don't really want to talk about any of it, at least not yet.  Matt and I are working on birthday plans but I guess I don't have a clear vision of becoming thirty.  My younger self probably figured I'd be dead by now or something.  No one could ever be as old as thirty.  There is a cute Japanese restaurant in Bangor we haven't tried yet and that might be what we do.  Matt will give me his whole day if I can figure out what I want to do with it.

In exercise news snow shoeing season is here.  We have over a foot of snow and it's kicking my ass, or more accurately my quads.  Our three mile walk is now a one mile walk which takes just as long and hopefully burns as many calories.  It feels like as many calories and my pants are getting bigger.  Which could just mean that my ass is stretching them...but I'm hoping it's a five pound loss.  I would know for sure if I could get to my scale which I can't because I have a hoarders amount of laundry in front of it so I don't have an accurate reading just a feeling...in my pants.

"Power. We make that. Technology. We make that. Cows. Well, no. We don't make cows"

So yesterday's blog was supposed to be about aquave syrup.  Which I freaking love.  I had been drinking more and more sugar in my tea and instead of doing something sensible  like using less sugar or say measuring it I just got more and more nauseas every time I made tea.  YAY!  Until I found a bottle of aquave I forgot about behind some other stuff in my cupboards.  It is awesome in my tea, I love it.  And now I'm running out and it's expensive and I have this urge to stop at marshalls and but a few bottles because obviously I am a hoarder and that's why that show bothered me so much.

I mentioned in a comment that I really wanted to stay home yesterday and clean up my house.  We always say that our house is messy because we don't have a lot of space and that is ALL true.  We don't have a lot of room and both of us are savers of things we might need.  I have a stack of martha stewarts I never open. Like never.  He has an incomplete set of 40 year old encyclopedia's.  They're both in my living room and I'm getting rid of them this weekend.  Mine I am taking to goodwill his will go in a box because you never know when you might need encyclopedia info from 1955.

As per forgetting I had the aquave syrup, I have a lot of cooking supplies.  Does is count as hoarding if they all get used...eventually.  It's not like I have an emotional attachment to chocolate chips, I just bake a lot and I buy a lot...especially when on sale.  Does it only count as hoarding if you name your chocolate chips and then refuse to eat them?