Fitted Sheets and Other Conundrums

I wish fitted sheets had an indicator as to which sides are the short sides.  A little dot, an embroidered line, a giant freaking patch that is impossible to miss that screams, "This Side Is The Short Side, Idiot!"  I was making the bed this morning, cursing the powers that be for the fitted sheet.  Granted, I like the fitted sheet once it's on the bed, but figuring out which side is the short side usually has me getting snapped in the face as I try to put the short side of the sheet on the long side of the bed.  And don't even get me started on folding those things.  Oddly enough, I once got an advertisement in the mail from Volkswagen.  On the mailer, it had detailed instructions on how to fold a fitted sheet.  What a car advertisement and folding a fitted sheet have in common, I'll never know, but the folding instructions were quite good, and I successfully folded a fitted sheet for the first time ever.  And unfortunately, it was the last, as the mailer went missing and I hadn't committed all the steps to memory.  My fitted sheets now get rolled up into something that vaguely resembles a square.  First world problems, right?

I wish there was no such thing as automatic flushing toilets.  I really despise those things.  I have a thing with being too close to a toilet while it's flushing...we've all read those reports about how microscopic poo particles fly into the air every time you flush your toilet, landing on everything within a 5 foot radius or something like that.  That's the reason (in theory) that you're not supposed to have your toothbrush out on your vanity counter-top if it's too close to the toilet.  I don't know the validity of that theory, but it sounds somewhat legit.  I guess.  Microscopic poo particles aside, there are some toilets out there that have such a vigorous flush that they actually splash.  And more often than not, these dang toilets have automatic flushers.  And my issue is this...I can't pull my pants up fast enough and get out of the stall before the toilet is flushing, causing the potential splashing of my own excrement upon me.  Even with stretchy pants that require no zipping or buttoning, I'm still not fast enough to get out of the stall before the flush begins.  And here's another issue...once the toilet is flushing, I can't very well open the door to the stall and sneak out, as opening the door causes me to actually get closer to the flushing, splashing monster.  It's not uncommon for me to find myself pressed up against the door of the toilet stall holding my breath with my eyes closed hoping there's no splash.  And what about those times that I'm having an extending sitting session, and I lean forward a bit for comfort, thereby triggering the automatic flush, splashing my bottom with my own excrement?  Really?  I'm still technically on the toilet.  Perhaps it's a built in courtesy flush feature?  Whatever the case may be, it really stresses me out.  People argue that they'd rather not touch the handle of a public toilet, as there are germs on it.  If I'm going to wash my hands anyway, I don't see the problem with touching someone else's germs if it allows me to open the door the of the stall, pull the flusher handle as quickly as possible, and dash out of the stall before the toilet is in full flush.  That's all I ask.  Just let me have control of the flush.  So now I find myself dreading even more the prospect of using public toilets.  A little part of me dies inside every time I see that little red dot on the wall behind the toilet indicating an automatic flusher.  Again, first world problems.  I should just be grateful that I don't have to dig a hole every time I need to go to the bathroom.

The selling of my belongings continues in earnest.  For the most part, I've been having pretty good luck with buyers.  I've been selling things to people back home in Minnesota, friends here in Flagstaff, random Craigslisters, and the eBay crowd.  I'm actually getting kind of addicted to it.  I rummage through my closet on an almost daily basis looking for things to sell or give away.  Simon and I are taking a trip to Arkansas tomorrow to visit friends, and I think the time away from my selling will be good for me.  Give me a little time away from all the stuff I own.  And it's all stuff.  It's not like I'll regret getting rid of 99% of everything I'm off-loading, but I need to be patient and take a step back before I find myself left with nothing but underpants and some Stephen King books.  Although, there is a market for used women's underpants (so I'm told), so in theory I could be left with nothing but the books.  Something to think about...or not...is the used women's underpants market really something I want to be associated with?  Probably not.  But if the money is good...why the heck not?  Hmm... 

Anyways, my 10 minutes are up.  I think they were actually up a little while ago, but I have a question.  Initially I started this little blog with the idea that I would physically type for 10 minutes and post whatever I could finish in those 10 minutes.  Obviously, I have yet to stay within that 10 minute time-frame, despite the fact that I can type almost 70 words a minute.  But the other day my mom told me that my posts need to be longer because they take less than 10 minutes to read, a factor I hadn't actually considered when starting this blog.  A common complaint I used to receive about my other blogs is that they were far too long, and that people didn't read them because it took too long to get through them.  So my question is this...is 10 minutes too long to sit and read my babble?  Do I stick with the 10 minutes of typing or go for 10 minutes of reading?  Or something in between?  I'm kind of leaning towards the in-between, myself, since I clearly can't adhere to the 10 minutes of typing, but I don't know that I can deliver 10 minutes of reading on a consistent basis.  Perhaps it's a non-issue and I just spent an extra 4 minutes typing out this paragraph...hahaha!  Anyway, let me know your thoughts.

Have a fantastic day!     

             

Clap Along if You Know What Happiness is to You...

So, I'm in the car this morning on my way home from work, and on the radio is the song 'Happy.'  I know a lot of people are sick and tired of hearing that song, destroyed as it was by the radio stations like any song that happens to be unique or creative.  Being someone who doesn't listen to radio all that much, I'm indifferent to it.  But I'm also irritated by it for reasons that have little to nothing to do with the song itself.

I remember a few months back when one of those marriage proposal videos went viral.  The one in particular I'm referencing is the one where the guy asks his girlfriend, unbeknownst to her, to marry him every day for an entire year.  If you haven't seen it, here it is.  Fair warning, it's 15 minutes long.  15 minutes of a guy dancing, eating, working out, singing into his toothbrush microphone, and lip syncing along to some songs, 'Happy' being one of them, all the while asking his gal to marry him via notes on a whiteboard. 

And while it's cute and sappy and probably melts the hearts of girls everywhere who would give anything to have a guy like that take the time, energy, and thought to go through with such an elaborate proposal, I can't help but be slightly repulsed by the whole thing.  Sappy, I am not.  Sentimental, maybe...but Christ-in-a-sidecar...if I was the marrying kind (I'm not), and Simon were planning on proposing to me (he's not), and I found out that it took him purposefully a year to do it (he wouldn't), I'd probably want to punch him.  Really?  A whole year of proposals?  It's not like he needed the entire year to decide if he actually wanted to propose or not...that part was already taken care of.  In fact, I can't think of anything that needs to be drawn out ambiguously for a year's time.  Shit or get off the pot.  Hopefully Simon isn't deleting his own marriage proposal video as he reads this...hahaha! 

So yeah...it wasn't the radio that ruined 'Happy' for me, it was the sappy, pasty, white dude in the too-tight shirt who took 365 days to ask one simple question.  I'm such a harpy.      

Battle of the Bulge

So I've gained some weight.  How much, I have no idea.  I don't own a scale and I refuse to use the one at the gym or the hospital.  I don't feel that numbers really give me an accurate picture of where I'm at.  But that bulge of pudge hanging over the waistband of my pants?  Very telling.  As I stood there in the bathroom pondering my freshly-baked muffin top, I thought to myself, "I need to do something about that."

I'm not at the point of no return...the point where I throw in the towel and get myself to mall for some bigger pants.  For one, I'm much too cheap for that.  For two, jeans shopping is the THE WORST.  I hate it.  There are few things I hate more than jeans shopping (Cilantro tops the list, of course, people not using their blinker or driving under the speed limit is a close second).  I haven't purchased a new pair of jeans in years, partly because I can't fathom the shopping, and partly because I feel that most of the jeans on the market these days are downright ugly and cheaply made.  I don't want rhinestones adorning my behind, I don't want so much stretch that after a couple hours of wear the butt is so saggy that it looks like I crapped myself, and I don't want overly aggressive fading or tears.  I just want a nice pair of jeans that fits well and doesn't make me look like a stuffed sausage or a complete frump.  One would think I could find this relatively easy.  Perhaps I'm just not trying hard enough. 

Or, perhaps I just need to quit being such a lazy glutton.  It's true that I don't exercise as much as I should.  It's also true that I don't eat as well as I should.  The ultimate truth is that I suffer from a lack of motivation for just about everything.  I could come up with a plethora of excuses to explain away my lack of exercise and good eating habits.  Including, but not limited to: I work night shift and at 2am those fried chicken tenders, taquitos, and that bright orange mac and cheese (where does that color come from anyway?) look far better than a salad ever will; I've lost all motivation for cooking, despite the fact that my freezer and pantry are literally overflowing with food options; I put off eating until I'm literally starving, at which point going to Chipotle or eating peanut butter right out of the jar are the only things that will suffice.  I could go on, but I won't.  An excuse is just that...an excuse.

So am I going to do anything about it?  Not today, I'm not.  And maybe not tomorrow either.  Although I do plan on going to the gym tomorrow.  This is my favorite instructor's last week of teaching before she moves back East.  I'm super bummed, because she's one of the few people who can get a giggle out of me whilst in the middle of 200 reps of squats, when all I'd really like to do is throw down the bar and go eat something savory and incredibly unhealthy...and decidedly not green.

Simon has started making smoothies for us.  He's pretty good at it, although they're not as sweet as I would like...I don't know if anything could be as sweet as I would like and still be healthy.  So I choke them down.  The other day he put beets in one of the smoothies, which I didn't realize until a panicked trip to the bathroom left me thinking that I might want to pay a visit to the local ER to make sure I wasn't bleeding internally.  Damn beets.  I do love them, but the aftermath is disturbing.

So here we are.  I'm sitting on exercise ball as I type this.  Not so much for the fitness of it, but because the chair I was using was too tall, causing me to slouch which was in turn making my back ache.  So I sit on the ball and tell myself that I'm actually passively "exercising."  While I drink a mocha and peruse the internet trying to find a suitable bus to live out of.  Do you think it helps to bounce on the ball whilst sitting on it?  I'm bouncing on it right now.  I'm telling myself that the muffin top is melting away with each tap of the keyboard.  I'm delusional.  And definitely not wearing the proper bra for bouncing.

Over and out.        

Running Out of Excuses? Nah...That'll Never Happen!

I was supposed to run a 5k this morning.  Bright and early, out in the woods with a bunch of other runners from the Flagstaff community.  And then it snowed 4 inches last night.  And it was 28 degrees this morning when I was supposed to be leaving the house to get my butt to the race start.  So I stayed in bed.  In my warm, cuddly bed with the glorious heated mattress pad.  And I didn't feel bad about it.  Well, maybe a little. 

I have a really hard time motivating myself to get out and run.  I thought that joining a run club here in town that meets once a week would get me out.  It doesn't.  I've gone once.  I thought that signing up for 9 races this summer in Flagstaff might motivate me to get out and run.  I skipped my first race.  Granted, given that I have conditional issues with running in the first place, running through the snow and mud in sub-30 degree weather is the epitome of the perfect storm to keep me indoors.  That and I went out and had beers with friends last night.  Why do I always do that?  The last two races I've ran, I drank more alcohol than usual the night before.  When I ran that 15k in Minneapolis back in April, I had an entire bottle of wine the night before.  Who does that?  Only an idiot like me, apparently.

So here I sit, in my sweatpants, typing on my computer and obsessing over this school bus idea that Simon and I can't seem to let go of.  I'm going through my stuff, separating things into piles of items that are worth selling, things that are going to the Goodwill, and things that I'm setting aside for friends and family who might want them.  It's an arduous task.  But given my love of organizing things, I'm gleefully looking forward to it.  There's a high that comes along with purging belongings that are taking up space and are no longer needed.  It's better than any runner's high I've ever had.  And therein lies yet another excuse.  If purging my belongings makes me feel better about my present condition than running through the muck does, then I'm going with it.

I'll go for a run tomorrow.  Maybe.  I'm supposed to go to a work party tonight, so there's that whole alcohol drinking thing again...hahaha!  I'm so glad I'm not one of those people who feel guilty about not exercising.  :) 

My Littlest Buddy

About a week or so ago, I noticed that Cooper was walking kind of funny, and that he had this oddly strange hump to his back.  I had noticed back in January that I could feel the little nubbins of his lower spine through his coat, something that I hadn't been able to do before.  I thought that maybe he was just a little under weight, given that his eating habits have been erratic, at best, since Brie passed away last fall.  Turns out that he's got spinal arthritis, a degenerative problem that happens to pretty  much every being who lives to be old.

Since noticing the nubbins in January, I hadn't really seen a change in him.  We still went for walks, he still tore around the house like a madman, we had even embarked on a few long, off-leash walks with some friends and their dogs.  He's actually been more active in the past few months that he had been in the past few years.  But then a week ago, the humped back showed up.  And he wasn't sleeping through the night, waking me up frequently to change positions, jumping on and off the bed, that sort of thing.  I knew it was serious when he started to whimper while trying to find a comfortable spot to lay.  This dog does not whimper in pain.  Ever.  He's tough as nails and he's proven to be a pretty resilient pug.  So of course I started freaking out.  Not Cooper.  Not my little buddy.  Not yet.

All I could think about as I watched him struggle to get comfortable was the last year we spent with Brie.  Watching her shuffle from place, gradually losing function in her back legs.  I maintained then and I still do to this day that she was not in pain...she just wasn't neurologically intact.  Which isn't to say that she wasn't uncomfortable sometimes when she couldn't get her legs under her to stand, but I never got any indication from her that her condition was painful for her.  Stressful, yes.  Painful, no.  So this situation with Cooper is different.  Functionally, he's still very much intact.  But he's in pain.  So now we're once again dealing with a degenerative change that we weren't prepared for and haven't been through in the past.   

I think his condition is relatively minor at this point, and I'm hoping that the daily anti-inflammatory and joint supplements will help to give him some comfort and to keep him active.  He seems to be doing better after a few days on the meds, so that's reassuring.  He's still slow to mobilize in the mornings and he still seems to have a little trouble with finding a comfortable place to lay, but there's no more limping and no more whimpering.  I'll take it.

Since early 2013, I've put down one dog a year.  It's stressful and heart breaking and while I know that death is a part of life and that our little buddies have shorter lifespans than we do, I still can't help but think about it.  I'm hopeful that we can make it through 2015 without a death, but I'm being rational about it too.  Cooper will die someday.  He just will.  He could die tomorrow by antagonizing the wrong dog, he could run out into the street and get hit by a car, he could live another 5 years and die peacefully in his sleep of old age (fingers crossed for that one!).  My job is to keep him as happy and comfortable as possible for as long as he has left in this world.  I can do that.  :) 

We Have an Idea

So we have an idea.  It's a crazy idea.  I can't even believe that I'm considering it, yet I'm really excited about it and about what the future might hold for Simon and I. 

So this crazy idea is a bus.  A school bus.  A school bus converted into an RV, that we will drive around the country and camp at random, hoping we can survive in our bus by working only 6 months out of the year. 

That's crazy, right? 

Yes, it is.

But it's exciting to think about.  And I think it's totally doable. 

I've been having this feeling of unrest lately.  I still haven't quite figured out what it is or what to do about it, but I think I've come to the conclusion that I'm a bit of a gypsy at heart.  That there is a part of me that is happiest when moving from place to place.  I know it's not for everyone...it's not even for most people...maybe not even for half.  But I think it's for me.

And that's not to say that I don't enjoy where I am right now, or that I haven't enjoyed any of the other places that I've been in the years since I've been a nurse.  I enjoy every place I've been for different reasons, and I think there's a part of me that's craving that variety again.  New places to eat, new places to hike, new people to meet, a new patient population with their regional specific problems.  And only working 6 months out of the year will give us the opportunity to more consistently catch up with all of our buddies and family back in Minnesota.  The decision would definitely be multifactorial.

This idea is definitely in its infancy, so we won't be going anywhere anytime soon, assuming we get our crap together enough to go anywhere at all.  Living in a bus will be challenging, especially for me, because I like to have things.  You can't have lots of things when living out of a bus, no matter how good you are at tetrising things away (I'm pretty darn good, but given the amount of stuff I own, I'm not THAT good).  The debulking of my belongings has already begun.  I went through my closet the other day and purged a lot of things, which will soon be posted to eBay for a couple weeks before I give up and haul them to the Goodwill.  If I can make back even half of what I paid for each item, I'll be happy with that.  And if I don't, I don't.  Nothing to be done about that.  Them's the breaks for a serial shopper.  Either way, they've got to go.

First things first: Debulk Stefanie's items...this will probably be one of the longest and most arduous tasks, just because I have so much crap.  We are hoping to move to a smaller, less expensive place this fall so we can save more money.  We'll miss our cute little place on the hill, but admittedly, it's too big and too expensive for us.  Not that we can't afford it, but we really don't need it.  Hopefully we'll find something that will work for us this fall.  Flagstaff has a pretty cutthroat rental market, so we'll have our work cut out for us.  We'll most likely have to sell the Jeep, sell all our furniture, and we're probably going to sell our kayaks as well.  Sooo...if you're looking for some gently used women's clothing (Size 4-8 or there abouts), a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, or a pair of sea kayaks, please let me know!  They'll be up for grabs within the next year or so.  Well, the clothes are available now...please come take them away!

Also, if you know anyone or a company that specializes in bus conversions, or if you know someone who has one for sale, hit me up!!  I need all the info I can get!  :)  

Happy May Day!!

Okay, so I know I'm a day late.  But here's a May Day post anyway.  :)

May Day as a kid in Minnesota was one of my most favorite holidays.  It was almost as if May Day symbolized that it was okay to put the winter coats and boots away, that Spring was actually here to stay.  Of course, there were a few years when we got snow after May Day, which was depressing, but for the most part, May Day started Spring.

I grew up in a neighborhood full of kids my own age.  We would run up and down the street in packs, playing hide-and-seek, baseball, street ball, dodge ball, and tag.  Would would race our hot wheels up and down the driveway, and when we were too big for the hot wheels, we'd race our bikes up and down the street.  I can imagine it was difficult for a car to make it down the street without almost taking out a kid or two.

May Day was a big deal on our street.  For those of you not familiar with May Day (or May Day as we did it), I will give you a quick rundown.  May Day is all about the May Day basket.  The basket in question is usually a Dixie or Solo cup, filled with treats of some description.  Anything from candy to popcorn to peanuts to Cheetos...anything goes for the May Day basket.  This was back in the day when it was perfectly safe to give out unwrapped food items that contained gluten/GMOs/artificial colors and flavors/etc.  Usually mom finished ours off with a licorice handle.  You then run and deliver all the May Day baskets to the front stoops of your friends and neighbors, ring their door bell and then run away before they can get outside to catch you.  Technically when they caught you they were supposed to give you a kiss, but we skipped that part.  We preferred to give each other a pinch instead.

As you can imagine, a street full of kids delivering and receiving May Day baskets could turn into all out Mayhem (you see what I did there?).  But it was so much fun!  Some of my best memories of childhood center around me running around the neighborhood with my friends.  May Day for me meant that school was almost over, and that I could look forward to an entire summer of tearing around with my friends in the sunshine.  What simple needs we all had back then.  

Yesterday I found myself wondering if kids still do May Day baskets.  I hope so.  I hope they're enjoying it as much as I did, and that they're gearing up for a summer full of fun and sunshine.  I was thinking about what I could give to my neighbors now if I was going to do May Day baskets, seeing as I live in a community full of adults.  Beer and chocolate chip cookies would probably fit the bill.  They'd probably think I'd lost my mind, but would most likely appreciate the gesture.  Who wouldn't want beer and chocolate chip cookies??

Anyway, happy first day of Spring, as remembered to you by 9 year-old me.  :)