Footprints on the Moon

Self Portrait Sunday 6/1/08

Happy Sunday! Okay, I admit it, I cheated. I took this picture on Monday last week. AND it’s mostly Killian. Can you blame me? He’s just too darn cute! I was going to use the picture where he was smiling, but you could only see half of my eyeball, and I thought that would REALLY be cheating. When I snapped this picture, it was about the only 5 minutes he sat still all day… I plopped him on my lap and fed him some mandarin oranges, and little yogurt bites. He took a few drinks from the sippy cup and then he wanted DOWN. There were just too many interesting things to see and do, and his cousin’s fabulous wading pool and little tyke’s car to play with!

About Monday or so, I finally got to shut off my Santa Fe dehumidifiers too… wait. No… what I had running were regular humidifiers. Between the constant nose-blowing and the drying effects of the nasal sprays and decongestants, I had to turn my humidifier back on to try and combat the nosebleeds. I run a humidifier all winter long because when it’s too dry, I get frequent nosebleeds, but I had to get it back out thanks to this crazy allergy/sinus attack. This week though, I finally could breathe through my nose, and I’ve just been struggling with a bit of a cough that just won’t go away. It’s making me sound sicker than I am because my voice is all scratchy and hoarse. Wednesday, I was really starting to lose it… makes it kind of difficult to page people at work because you need to speak up to be heard. I sounded like a boy in puberty. It’s almost gone now, though, thank goodness. I don’t know if I could take another week of BossMan picking on my constant noises!

Edited to add: Don’t forget to check out Midlife Musings to see this week’s other participants, who probably don’t cheat as much as I do every Sunday.

Self Portrait Sunday - Mother’s Day Edition

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there reading this. I took this picture right after I got home from grocery shopping this morning. Can you tell that I was soaking wet from having to carry groceries in the rain? Okay, you might notice the rain drops on my sweatshirt, but can you tell that I was still trying to catch my breath from RUNNING back and forth from the car to the building and up a flight of stairs? LOL

Have you all had a good holiday, and have you called your mother? I saw my mom when I went over to use her washer and dryer so I wouldn’t have to go to work naked in the morning. Then we met Ryan, Ash-lee and Killian at Ponderosa for lunch/dinner. Good times… Killian was YELLING at the top of his lungs in the restaurant to get everyone’s attention so he could grin and flirt with them. Booger.

Now I am really tired, so I’m going to go get some pajamas on and start thinking about bed… Monday morning just comes around so quickly! Don’t forget to check out Midlife Musings to see who else is playing along this week.

Self Portrait Sunday 5/4/08

Sunday again already! I’m still trying to figure out why it feels like time has been moving so fast the last year or so, but I can’t believe we’re 4 days into May already.

I had a pretty good weekend though! Friday night, Sarah and I went over to Ryan and Ash-lee’s and spent the evening over there playing with Killian, playing Mario Kart on the Wii and just talking. Saturday I spent playing on the internet between bouts of cleaning my apartment. I still have a bit to do… like figuring out what to do with the plethora of ink pens that I found. Went from 0 pens to about 15 in one day! lol

Today, I cooked lunch for my mom and Harold, including dessert, AND I even did the dishes! Then, I got real crazy and shaved. my. legs. WOW. Of course, then when I went to take a shower, I opened the shower curtain to discover several inches of ice cold water standing in the bottom of the tub from yesterday’s shower. EW. The tub has stopped draining again.

When I get over my disgust, I’ll be off to Midlife Musings to see the other Self Portrait Sunday participants.

Self Portrait Sunday 4/20/08

Sunday again? Already? Man, this week just flew right by! Here’s a picture I took of myself earlier this afternoon. You can see part of my movie collection there behind me. And I just noticed that the stacks on top of the shelf are crooked, and that’s going to drive me insane until I fix it. I can be selectively OCD!

I made a whole lot of progress sorting through everything in the apartment this weekend. It’s amazing how much stuff I found that I forgot I even had! Unfortunately no Rolex Submariner hiding in the boxes, but I did find about a hundred spiral notebooks, an electronic dear diary from 8th grade, and lots of sidewalk chalk.

I am now at the point where it’s very slow going, and I feel like I’m not making very much progress. Not because there’s a huge mess, but because I’m down to all kinds of things that I just don’t know what to do with! Over the course of the weekend, I got to mark the bathroom, the kitchen, and the front closet off the list though. Slowly but surely… hopefully by the end of the week, I’ll have a fully reclaimed apartment. You know I’ll keep you posted on that end.

For now, though, it’s almost time for bed, so I’m going to go to Midlife Musings and see the rest of the self portraits this week, and then I’m off to dreamland!

Self Portrait Sunday 4/13/08

Not the greatest picture of me, but I snapped this before I headed out for the day and I just can’t be bothered to take another one. Besides, I’m so tired at the moment, I’m sure I couldn’t take one that would be an improvement anyways!

I didn’t get as much done this weekend as I originally planned. I did get all of my laundry done, including the sheets and blankets off of my bed. Since I have to haul all my laundry across town (or pay out the bum to do it downstairs), I really don’t wash my bed stuff as often as I ought to. So I’m very excited to go to bed and sleep on fresh sheets– that’s always fabulous. And since I didn’t sleep very well last night, that might be sooner rather than later. I did have interesting dreams last night though– a marriage proposal from a friend, and running from a tornado with my coworkers. In a school bus. That my grandmother was driving. I gotta start watching what I eat before bed! LOL

I had intended to really knock out my living room like I did my bedroom last weekend, but it just didn’t happen. I did make a good amount of progress, but I’d hoped to have it livable by now, and it seems to be more chaotic. I’m just overwhelmed. In the past, my method of cleaning the living room was to start cleaning and putting things away. When I found things I didn’t know what to do with, it got stowed away in the bedroom. That’s not optional this time, so when I find that box of bulk cable from every electronic device I’ve ever owned, I have to actually figure out what to do with it. Since I didn’t know what to do with all these cables, they’re still in a box on my coffee table.

I’m not very good at organizing and I have so much stuff in this small space that I’m just completely overwhelmed. I need someone to come in and tell me “throw that away.” “Sell that in the garage sale.” “Put that in the storage unit.” “You will never need that again!” I’ve purged quite a bit over the last several months, but I’m still a pack rat so there is a long way to go!

For now though, to Midlife Musings to see the rest of the SPS participants, and then BED. Where hopefully the dreams will be less unsettling lol

Self Portrait Sunday 4/6/08

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope it’s as gorgeous where you are as it is in Indiana this afternoon! It’s still a bit on the chilly side, but the sun is out! As long as you have a jacket or sweatshirt on, it’s just beautiful out there. These are the days that make you take a deep breath and say ahhhh… Spring is finally starting to win out over Winter. Thank goodness!!

You might be wondering about the chart by my head in this picture. I thought I’d let you see my motivation on this debt pay-off journey. This is actually one of the first things I did. This is a chart of all my debt (there’s another one at the bottom that got cut out of the picture), plus the baby emergency fund I’m trying to start with. When I sat down to do this in the beginning of February, I got online and found the current balances of all my debts. That’s on the very left. Then, each bar is divided into 10 blocks. So each block is 10% of that total debt. The right hand side is 0. So when the bars are solidly filled in, that debt is paid off.

It’s surprisingly motivating. I like seeing the whole picture right there. It was definitely necessary for getting started. It’s on the back of my front door, and you can see it from anywhere in the living room. I LIKE getting paid, and paying my bills now because it’s very satisfying to go over there with my highlighter and start coloring. It’s also good incentive to keep spending only within my income because I’m not sure I could handle going over there with white-out instead of my pink highlighter!

I need to get back to cleaning in my bedroom and change out some litter boxes, so I can take things out to the dumpster, and recycling bin while it’s so nice to do it. I’m finally making good progress on my bedroom, I’m so excited! If I had some quarters, I’d wash my bedding too… but that’s okay. The sheets will survive another week unwashed Make sure you check out Midlife Musings to see what everyone else is up to today!

Self Portrait Sunday 3/30/08 - Back Home Again in Indiana

Okay, so I never really left the state of Indiana, but that’s beside the point. Mom and I headed 3 hours away to Anderson, where I went to school. That’s the bad thing about going to college so far away… a lot of my friends were originally FROM Anderson, or at least chose to stay close after graduation. So when there are weddings and babies, it requires a road trip. Now, I could have taken a fabulous picture in a very different location than you get every other week. But I forgot all about SPS. So you get this picture of me, pajama clad, and in the same apartment you see me pictured in every other week.

It was a good weekend overall. The purpose of the trip was a baby shower for my friend Stefanie. I wasn’t going to go because I couldn’t afford the trip, but my awesome mama wanted a weekend away so she footed the bill for our road trip. (I funded the trip down to Anderson last July when Bethany got married.) It was nice, all I had to pay for was the baby shower gift, and when I decided to buy some picture frames at Walmart. Thanks Mom!

We drove down Friday night after work, and just bummed in the hotel room when we got there. Then the baby shower was Saturday morning, we did some shopping Saturday afternoon, and then that evening we met my college roommate Leslie, the one that came up a couple weeks ago, and Megan for dinner at Texas Roadhouse. We had a good meal, and a good time.

We went out for breakfast this morning, and then after a quick trip down for one last soak in the hot tub, we packed up and headed back home. I think I get to clean tomorrow after work because this place is a nightmare! I usually clean Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, neither of which I was home for. Instead, I made a big mess trying to pack quickly! It’s going to wait until at least tomorrow though because I’m tired from sleeping, or not as the case may be, in a hotel room instead of my own bed. As soon as this is posted, that’s exactly where I’m headed.

Don’t forget to visit everyone else’s Self portrait posts at Midlife Musings.

Self Portrait Sunday 3/16/08

This picture is actually from Tuesday night, so Loretta at least has seen it already. I had taken a shower, and when I took my hair out of the towel, this is what it looked like. No joke– no combing, no product, no nothing. I had to take a picture to share because you know I could never get my hair to look that nice on purpose! And you can see just how stubborn my hair is being about holding on to the curls I’m desperate to be rid of. I decided to use the picture today because a) it’s a self-portrait that I took this week and b) I’m being very critical of myself today, so I just couldn’t manage to take a picture that didn’t reinforce that feeling.

I had a very good day! I was somewhat productive this morning– I washed a load of laundry so I don’t have to go commando this week. I started cleaning in my bedroom and made some SERIOUS progress. I also finally moved my DVD player into the bedroom (I can’t get it wired correctly with the Tivo, and I was tired of fighting it) so now if you want to watch a movie at my house, you have to cuddle! Maybe that’s why I finally got motivated to clean in there?

My dad had Ryan, Ash-lee, Killian and I over for lunch, and then my college roommate came up and I met her at the exit to the highway and we went to dinner and Walmart. It was great to see her, catch up, and talk about how some things changed during school. It was the first time I’d seen her since graduation. We both felt kind of awkward at first, but by the time the food arrived, we got past that. She was a great roommate, so it was good to see her. I’m hoping we’ll stay in a little better contact going forward.

Now I’m just trying to wind down from being out and about all day… I need to go to bed soon. Those Monday mornings just come around way too fast!

Self Portrait Sunday 3/9/08

I had a hard time picking a picture this week that wasn’t completely unflattering. I ended up choosing this one because it wasn’t too bad, and you can really see the curl that’s left in my hair. This was just after I’d taken it out of the towel and combed it out. As you can see, it’s mostly straight now, with just a little bit of curls left at the ends. I cannot WAIT until it’s long enough to chop those off and go completely straight! It’s getting there…
I’d love to just sit here and wax poetic about the state of my hair (for the 8927337th week in a row), but I do have plans this evening. I’ve got work clothes in the dryer downstairs, so I’ve got to go fetch those and get them hung up in the closet before they get wrinkled.
Don’t forget, Self Portrait Sunday has a new home, so if you want to visit everyone who participated this week, you’ll need to go to Midlife Musings.

Self Portrait Sunday 3/2/08: Naked Naturals

I was asked to test a sample of a brand new shampoo and conditioner, and I post pictures of myself every Sunday so I figured what better way to kill two birds with one stone than to take before and after pictures and let my hair speak for itself? It’s brilliant, I know.

The sample was from naked naturals, and it was a set of shampoo and conditioner: awapuhi and lavender. As you can see from the picture, the sample is for color treated hair, which mine is not. My hair IS permed however, and therefore probably in need of some extra TLC as well. I really like the idea of a natural shampoo, especially one that they claim will make hair up to seven times stronger. I guess it’s time to live up to my end of the bargain and post that before picture. I hope this helps you all realize how committed I am to sharing the truth with you. *deep breath*

Okay, so there’s the very scary before. You may be able to tell that I’m kind of sick of the curly hair, and every so often I attempt to wear it straight. It’s grown out to about my ears at this point. Anyways, this was right before I hopped in the shower to try out the Naked Naturals shampoo.

And here’s the after. It’s still a little on the frizzy side at the ends where it’s still permed, but I’d say that’s a marked improvement, wouldn’t you?? It looks very healthy, it was VERY soft, and smelled really good! I wouldn’t buy this particular kind because I very rarely have color treated hair. But over on the website, I found a Citrus and Keratin version of Naked Naturals that I’d love to try when I find a little extra money in my budget. And of course, that won’t stop me from squeezing the last drops out of my little sample packets in the meantime!

Oh, and for those of who are wondering, my shirt says, “I can ignore you for as long as it takes.”