My Current Dilemma

I hate my bras.

I.Hate.Them.

When I first bought them, it was love. BIOFit from Victoria's Secret.

*sigh*

I think my love of them, and the fact that I only bought 2 and had already begun to hate the other bras that I had at that time, caused me to wear them more frequently than I should have.

That turned into wearing them ALL the time.

And now I hate them.

They are uncomfortable. They don't sit where they are supposed to anymore. The straps fall down ALL THE TIME even when they are all the way tight.

And recently, when I put one on it feels like something is stabbing me. And it's not the underwire, because I've checked... and probably offended some people for feeling myself up in public... but it's ANNOYING.

For example:
Today I put my bra on. And immediately felt an itching/stabbing sensation on the "underside" of my boob (hah, I just said boob). So I check, nothing there. Cool. BUT IT STILL HURT. I'm to the point, 4 hours into my day, that I'm dreaming about getting in the car this afternoon so that I can take it off. And again, probably offend some people as I pull my bra out of the sleeve of my shirt, in the middle of the day, where anyone could see me. Whatever, you don't know me.

I'm also daydreaming about going to the bathroom right now and taking it off. I would do it too, but the threat of 4 hours of perky nipples is greater than the annoyance of the phantom itching/stabbing non-underwire harassment that I am experiencing currently.

Solution:
I get paid tomorrow. I will be going out and purchasing myself some new bras.

Roadblocks:

1. Calli's surgery is tomorrow. So I have to see how she's feeling before I run off to the store. I also have to pay for her surgery, so that takes away some of my funds.
2. I need to get my hair dyed, BAD. It will happen this month. More removal of funds.
3. I'm trying to pay down my credit cards. So if I spend a bunch of money on new bras, I won't be able to pay as much off.
4. D.Soup's birthday is next Tuesday. I need to keep some money around in case he finally decides what he wants

I don't really think these things are going to play much of a part in my decision making, but who knows.

Only a few more hours until freedom.
For me AND my boobs.

Side Note: A look into my shambles of a life

I am not a morning person, even on my best day... and we know that currently NO day over the past month is anywhere close to being considered "my best day."

This morning I got up at 5:30 am (WHAT) and took a shower.

D.Soup also got up, to take Calli out because she was huffing and puffing in her crate.

As I am struggling to keep my eyes open in the shower, I almost fall over and have to prop myself up on the wall. I am actually impressed that I actually managed to get myself clean, shampooed and conditioned... I think I might have even got a little shave action in at the underarms. But I can't remember.

I come back into the bedroom to find Calli back in her crate and D.Soup back in bed.

What are you doing?

Waiting for you to get out of the shower.

Why are you in bed?

Because I wanted to cuddle you.

Well, what time are we getting up?

I guess now.

...And I immediately burst into tears.

I don't remember exactly what I said, because most of it was gibberish. But I do remember something along the lines of "All I want is to lay back down and you get to lay down and now you want to get back up and I always get up before you and......"

So we climbed back in bed and slept until about 7:15.

I still didn't want to get up then.



Whenever I do end up having kids, I just know they are going to end up being "morning people." They are going to wake up at 5 am all happy and bubbly and make me bitter towards them for a little while because we're both awake and they are completely okay with that fact.

Because someone, somewhere, hates me.

I have a Short Fuse

I am a happy person.

I smile and laugh and have a bounce in my step. I do not shoot death glares at anyone that moves in a way I don't think they should be.

Normally.

This week has been an exception.

I thought it was maybe just the experiences that I've been having this week.

But I started thinking about it today, and decided it might be part of the symptoms of my potential hypothyroidism.

(Which, by the way, I'm still waiting to hear back on -- Manuel, whoever you are... I know you don't read my blog but CALL ME BACK NOW. kthxbi.)

I have dubbed myself the Hulk.

So I googled, because that's what I do when I need the answer to something. Google knows everything.

Turns out, I could be right. Its most likely a mixture of the hypothyroidism and my complete and utter exhaustion, which are basically the same thing... but whatever.

This whole theory is going to be completely ruined,
if they tell me that my test results came back normal.

Project RPOOHTBUSWDHIABWAGTBHFALAY

AKA Project Revamp Parts Of Our House That Bother Us So We Don't Hate It Anymore Because We Are Going To Be Here For At Least Another Year.

We hate our house.

Okay, not so much hate it. We have a TON of stuff, and not so much space to put it in.
(PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS! Itty-bitty living space.)

Add two cats and a dog and all their accessories to that, and we are cramped. And uncomfortable. And messy.

Originally we had planned on moving this year. But now we've decided to focus more on paying down some credit cards and saving money for when we actually do buy a house. (look at us making adult decisions)

So we had to come up with a plan.

Enter Project RPOOHTBUSWDHIABWAGTBHFALAY.

There are phases to this project.

Stage 1 was discussed here and then tucked away for everyone to forget about.

The plywood has been purchased, the door has been ordered. Stage 1 - complete.

Stage 2: Cut plywood down to size. We need two 61x40 inch pieces to replace the slats under our mattress on our bed.This is similar to our bed, it's from IKEA. When we originally got this bed, I was in love.

Then we moved.

And now it's a nightmare. Well, the bed itself isn't a nightmare, the wooden slats underneath it are. See, when we moved, the normal 60 inch width of the bed frame expanded slighty and is now 61 inches. The slats do not approve.

They fall out from under the mattress all the time. Causing D.Soup's side of the bed to be a few inches lower than mine. Which then produces an uncomfortable night's sleep.

We are over it.

D.Soup is going to be working on getting the new boards cut this afternoon, and hopefully it will be smooth sailing from there.

The rest of the plywood is going into the attic. The current flooring in the attic is a few randomly placed pieces of board that are only about 3 feet wide in a circle around the attic "door." Another lovely gift from the people that lived in the house before us. I'll have to write something up about all THAT at a later date.

More attic floor means more storage space for stuff that we never use but didn't have anywhere to put before. This means Mz.Soup has to come to terms with the fact that there is some stuff in her closet and drawers that she HASN'T WORN in quite a while. I think I can manage that. Think.

It will be good to get a bunch of the random stuff around our house out of the way...

Stage 3: Is really an extension of Stage 1. While at Home Depot last night, we bought "mollies" (I put in parenthesis because D.Soup continued to say "they aren't mollies" every time I would say "we need to go grab some mollies." So obviously I am wrong, but that's what I've always called them and that's what I will probably to continue to call them. So there.) for the railing that we put in a few months ago. The bottom part of it apparently didn't end up in a stud, so now it's decided to start coming back out.

We also ordered a new front entry door and storm door. We can currently see light coming through the gap in between the side of the door and the framing, so we are pretty excited about a replacement.

Obviously, a new addition to Stage 3 is a new garbage disposal. We will be purchasing one either tonight or tomorrow, and installing it over the weekend.

Stage 4: New closet organization.

The first time we toured our house before buying it, I walked into the master closet and went "oh, well this would need to be changed." It was awful. Just two metal poles running the length of the right side and back wall of the closet. And they overlapped each other in the corner.

It's still like that to this day.

We kept talking ourselves out of it: "No, we can just deal with it... we won't be here forever." Well now that I'm going to be here another year, I want it fixed... and I want it fixed NOW.

I have an image in my head. It looks a little something like this:

And this:Mixed together in a beautiful masterpiece of organized clothes storage glory.

My expectations for this Stage of the project are obviously very high.

Honestly anything will be an improvement from what we have right now.

These are the first few stages, there will be many more additions to Project RPOOHTBUSWDHIABWAGTBHFALAY. Right now, these are the most prevalent pieces, so they are the focus. I think we need to finish these few things before we step back and say "now what?" I will try to post updates (maybe with pictures!) as each Stage is completed.

I'm so ready for a new closet.

Side Note: From the Daily Squee

Oh. My. Goodness.

And they even named it Love Him, Squeeze Him, Call Him George.

That is all.

Side Note: Death Stare

If you stare the back of someone's head down with enough venom, they WILL feel it.

I tested this theory out with Mr. I'm Not Going To Hold This Door Open For You Even Though You're Only Two Steps Behind Me.

Mz.Soup: *angry eyes*

He damn sure felt that, because the second door he held open for me.

Thanks, guy.

Obviously I'm still "cranky" from yesterday.

I'll try to think of something happy to post about :)

Love,
Mz.Cranky McAngryStarePants

Night from hell

I know I posted once already today, but I need to get this down before I push it to the part of my brain that I save for horrible things I don't want to remember... Which hopefully will be any time now.

I would like to preface this with a reminder that at this point in my life, at approximately 7 pm I "turn into a pumpkin." This is a cute little saying my sister came up with to describe my niece if she's not in bed by a certain time. It's a nice way of say that my niece turns into a screaming banshee if she's passed bedtime.

So remember: 7 pm = Mz.Soup turns into a pumpkin...

Normally, D.Soup and I have a fairly laid back evening once we get home from work. Other than the "crazy time" we usually deal with regularly with the animals, our life is simple.

Not tonight.

Tonight we decided to begin a plan we developed yesterday, we'll call it: Revamp Parts Of Our House That Bother Us So We Don't Hate It Anymore Because We Are Going To Be Here For At Least Another Year. Ugh.

Stage 1 of RPOOHTBUSWDHIABWAGTBHFALAY: We need plywood for attic storage, and for under our bed, and we need to pick out/order a new front door. Easy enough, right?

That's where you are wrong.

We borrow my grandfather's truck and drive, excited and oblivious, to Home Depot.

We walk immediately over to the lumber section to pick out some plywood. This is about how our first conversation went:

Useless Home Depot Employee #1:Hello, do you all need help with anything today?

D.Soup: Yes actually, we need to buy some plywood for under our bed.

#1: Great! It's all right over here...

(As you can see it started well...)

D.S: So we are going to need two pieces, our bed is 61x80.

#1:What? That's not going to work.... *confused stare*

D.S: Yeah, one piece won't be enough....

#1:No, that won't work... You're going to need two pieces

Mz.Soup:*blank stare*

He then proceeds to show us this super thick plywood that, while sturdy, is probably more than we need for the bed. But he insists this will be our best option, and that there's some "damaged pieces" that he could "get us a good deal from his manager".

Looking back now it felt like a drug deal. I couldn't think of something like that during though, my vision was already steadily clouding over in red.

He walks away from us to call his manager, and consequentially begins helping other customers. He helps 2 people while we are standing there. We decide to walk over and look at the lawn mowers because D.Soup is interested in one.

We head back over 10 minutes later to tell him that we aren't worried about the cost and to just cut the plywood for us, only to find him helping not only the same guy he was with when we left, but with 2 other people waiting for him.

Useless Home Depot Employee #2 was standing right next to #1 listening to the conversation, not bothering to help anyone else. Awesome.

So we finally get back to the front of the line. And tell him not to worry about the cost, just cut the plywood.

Uhhh, I can't cut it here, someone broke my saw...

Is that the only saw that can cut plywood?

Yes.

Again I say, awesome.

We give up on the plywood for the moment, and walk over to the door section. We had a basic idea of what we wanted walking into the store. So of course that means we spent the next HOUR running through the option selection with Less Useless Home Depot Employee #3. He at least knew his stuff, he just worked so slow.

Finally, door ordered, we tiredly head back to the wood section. D.Soup informs me that "If that annoying guy is still over there we aren't getting plywood tonight.". Can't argue with that, I wanted to punch him within 2 minutes off meeting him.

Luckily a non-useless employee (the only one we encountered) confirmed our suspicion that we didn't need the super thick plywood, and that the thinner plywood that is HALF THE PRICE of the other stuff will work just fine for what we need. Thank you, Greg. Where were you earlier?

I made a complete fool out of myself as I 'helped' D.Soup move the plywood to our cart. I might have whined a little. Pouted. But I soldiered through. We needed to get out of this store and I was NOT willing to wait for someone to help.

So, all necessary items in hand (well, cart) we start making our way to the register.

When you see someone rolling a giant cart through a store, without much visibility, do you move to the side and let them through? I do. Apparently not everyone does... Useless Home Depot Customer #1 decided he needed to walk down the wide open aisle towards us, nice and slow, like he didn't see the cart with the 8 foot long pieces of plywood on it come around the corner towards him.

Jerk.

I tried to stare him down. Death stare offended face style. And ran into a sign. So the moment was kind of ruined. But I'm still bitter.

I pay for our stuff as D.Soup runs out to get the car. We are free and clear.

Not quite.

Useless Home Depot Employee #4 comes up to me in the parking lot to ask if we needed help loading our stuff.

"That would be wonderful." I say. It was not wonderful.

He was about 5'4", 130 lbs. Why would they put him in the loading area? Poor planning, Home Depot. How do you look at that guy and say "I know the perfect position for you.". Shame on you.

He tried to pick up 2 pieces of plywood the first round. Struggled, but managed. Until he got to the truck. Then he backed himself up between the truck bed and the plywood. Then he dropped his end in an effort to move out of the way. My attempt to help was foiled by the wind trying to drive the cart into the side of the truck.

Mz.Soup makes a fool out of herself part 2: "Eeeeeeeeeeekkkkk, the cart!" as I'm running to catch it.

Slowly but surely #4 and D.Soup get the other pieces of plywood into the truck. Freedom!

All that terribleness is behind us and we can just go home now and make dinner and watch Caps hockey. Right?

Wrong.

Dinner prep was going well, until I finished grating the zucchini.

I should probably tell you that grating the zucchini was step 1. Sigh.

I took the pieces of the zucchini I had cut off and tossed them down the drain to feed to my garbage disposal. Turned on the hot water. Flip the switch.

GRRRRJVDIWONKDNNVJFrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr click

That's what I heard.

Uhh, I think I broke the garbage disposal...

...Again?...

Come to find out, a rogue measuring spoon that I thought I had successfully looked for remained hidden from me within the disposal. And me flipping the switch caught it. And slammed it into the side of the already old disposal. And busted a giant hole through the wall. And shot water and food particles all over the inside of the cabinet under our sink.

Way to go me.

D.Soup is an angel, he sat down there and cleaned up my mess while I continued on with dinner prep. He even held off the mockery, for the most part.

I asked him in terror if this meant we had to go back to the hardware store tonight.

No,you just cant really use the sink.

I can be okay with that.

Not two minutes later, while he was finishing up his cleanup... While cutting up some onion.... I sliced into my finger.

Really, this day cannot get any better.

Let me help you

NO, I'm going to finish this on a matter of principle...and then I'm going to go somewhere and cry.

...Luckily I completed both at the same time... Cutting up onion has that kind of perk...

And now, finally we are going to bed. The night is looking up, the Caps won and dinner was delicious.

At least everything isn't in a shambles.

Here's to tomorrow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Life is never boring when you have pets.

Right now, at this very moment... I am eating carrots with light ranch dressing. Now this is usually a normal every day occurrence for me.

Today, in my head, every time I pick up a carrot and dip it in the ranch I hear:

"MMMMMMMMM CARROT. NOM NOM NOM."

I can't stop it.

Luckily I'm not saying it out loud.

I feel like I'm running my own personal ICanHasCheezburger reel in my head.

Okay, those are done, so hopefully we can all move away from that experience.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night was mildly traumatic for all of us in the Soup household.

Massive thunder accompanied the not so massive storms that we had on an off all day yesterday. So massive that at one point I felt the 7 story building that I work in shaking.

I work on the 2nd floor.

Since this is the first real storm that we've had since last spring, D.Soup and I conveniently forgot the terror that envelopes our older cat, Atti, when there is a thunderstorm.

I wish I had the forethought to photograph him during his 15 minutes of panic after the one (and only) giant clap of thunder that mini storm. Instead I comforted him, which I feel was a better choice...

But they would have been some awesome pictures.

I will have to settle for showing you a picture of what he LOOKED like:
Now, imagine those eyes. At that height. Walking around the house staring at the ceiling like it was going to collapse. And then you probably have a decent image of Atticus in your head. I'm not exactly sure how he manages to pull his normally long legs up into his body so that they are nonexistent.

It's quite impressive.

I'm also not exactly sure why he thinks lowering his center of balance is going to help him in situations like this. It happens quite frequently: upon entering a room after it has been vacuumed, investigating an unfamiliar addition to the floor, returning after a hasty retreat from a non-thunder noise (really any noise).

My other animals were blissfully unaware of the thunder, or the trauma that Atti was experiencing. In fact, at one point when he was finally settling down (read: hiding under my legs) Calli decided it was the perfect time to see if he had FINALLY accepted her as a member of the house (answer: NO). Luckily I stopped her before she could pounce on him and all our previous comforting was not for loss.

Leo is always blissfully unaware of everything.

Well, except Calli... he's ALWAYS aware of her.

We are trying to keep Calli away from eating people food, because I don't want to deal with her begging constantly while we're in the kitchen or eating.

So far so good... other than the dishwasher.

She has been extremely interested in the dishwasher every time it is open. I think mostly because it's at her level and it smells interesting.

I chase her off every time she gets too close to it for my comfort. But D.Soup was unloading it last night while I was comforting Atti and wasn't paying as much attention to her as I usually do.

If he was, he would have noticed her inching up to it, he would have also noticed her starting to climb in it...

What he did notice. Well, what everyone noticed was her running frantically away from it going "YIPE YIPE YIPE YIPE YIPE" with the bottom drawer of the dishwasher following closely behind her for a few seconds.

Here's what I think happened: When she climbed into the dishwasher, she stepped in between the wires of the drawer, and her paw got caught. She immediately noticed this and tried to pull it out. Which caused the drawer to start moving. Which completely and utterly terrified her and she ran. Which triggered the attack of the dishwasher monster (nickname created by me). Which then brought us full circle back to the frantic running and YIPEing.

Of course, all of this sent both cats into a panic. Leo booked it up the stairs, and Atti returned to his previous occupation of wandering around the first floor as a shortened version of himself with a permanent "WTF" look on his face.

Well, when Calli got as far away from the dishwasher monster as she possibly could, she turned around and growled at it in a "Yeah, I showed you." manner. To prove that she, in fact, was not the giant pansy that we all think she is.

Of course, none of us believed her.

Especially considering she walked around with her tail in between her legs for 15 minutes, and would not re-enter the kitchen for 30 minutes. When she finally did, she donned a stance very similar to Atti's.

Thankfully, all was resolved when we loaded her up and into the car and made our merry way to the vet's office. Calli finally has all her puppy shots, and she's been scheduled to have her surgery next week.

The rest of the evening went more smoothly.

No thunder.

No dishwasher monster.

Peace.

Moral of the story:
Beware of the dishwasher monster.
(aka Listen to your Mother)
And loud noises in general.

More of the Same

Here we are, another day, and I again have nothing really exciting to write about...

I need to come up with some really good stuff to talk about. I'm just not creative at the moment.

Calli has a vet appointment today. She gets her last shots, and then she'll be allowed to start puppy training school. She can also be scheduled for her surgery. She has an umbilical hernia, and usually they get removed when they are spayed, but the rescue we got her from didn't have it done when they sent her to the vet to get neutered. I've been anxiously waiting to be able to schedule it, because I'm nervous she's going to do something and hurt it. So I'm pretty excited for both of those things to happen. We've been working with her at home for some things, and she's gotten really good at "come", "stay" and "sit"... most of the time, and sometimes lay down but . So hopefully she'll do well in puppy school.

I'm anxiously awaiting the results from my second blood test. I have a feeling its going to come back the same as the other, because I'm still tired all the time. I didn't get to take a nap yesterday, and I walked around the grocery store like a zombie. I also couldn't find my keys, which were in my purse the whole time. Then I went home and made dinner, and told D.Soup (who had just finished playing an entire game of soccer - 1.5 hours ish... without a sub) that I was "hurting" because I hadn't got a nap in.

He laughed at me.

Good news though, we made a bunch of awesome food this weekend: Chicken Enchiladas, Taco Dip, Chicken Parmesan. Now I don't know if I used too much of something, but if you are not so much a heat fan, be careful with the Chicken Enchiladas... they were very spicy.

My friend at work introduced me to the Glee station on AOL Radio.... I have been listening to it for 3 weeks straight now. I am a giant Gleek, have been since the show started. I've been dying for it to start back up again. The fact that Glee Radio started playing the songs from the new episode makes me so unbelievably excited that said new episode airs TONIGHT!

All I can say is: It's about time.

I need a profile picture.

Side Note: Dinner

On a completely different note...

D.Soup and I made baked chicken nuggets for dinner tonight. They were delicious. We didn't use the panko that is in the recipe, mostly because we didn't have any and were too lazy to go to the store. We also added half a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning to the breading mixture. We had some broccoli along with it, it was pretty and yummy...

I love the SkinnyTaste website, because her food is really tasty and pretty easy to make. I'm not a complete beginner in the kitchen, but I usually try to stick to what I know... And still have moments of panic if I'm making something new.

I never feel completely incompetent when following her recipes, and that's important for me.

I'm excited to try something tomorrow.

I've just got to figure out what.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

neVer forgeT

Today is April16th.

For most people that doesn't mean anything. And until a few years ago it didn't really mean anything to me either.

But now it's a day that I remember a friend with an
amazing smile and a wonderful attitude who is no longer with us, it's a day that I remember another girl I always thought was so strange who lived down the hall from me when I was in the dorms, its a day I think about an entire group of people that I never knew. It's the anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech.

It has been 4 years now... And I'm not going to talk a whole lot about it because 1. Everyone knows what happened 2. I got tired of talking about it about 3 months afterwards when everyone wouldn't stop asking if I was there or if I knew anyone and 3. I'm not going to put you through that.

I still can't believe it's been 4 years. I think about my friend all the time, so today isn't really much different for that. What I like to think about more today is the guy that I watched as he walked across the stage that summer with his crutches, because he too had been shot, but survived.

Normally on this day I wear nothing but Virginia Tech clothes, but I had two birthday parties to go to and wanted to look nice. Having the parties also means that I didn't really have a lot of time to think about anything related to VT today... But like I said before, I remember my friend all the time, so today is sort of like any other day.......... Sort of.

Today just hurts a little more.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Walk Like an Egyptian

D.Soup is going to game two of the Capitals playoffs tonight... That's hockey playoffs, if anyone -miraculously- ends up reading this who is not our friend and doesn't know our love of the sport. I often ask him why he doesn't take ME to the games that he ends up going to... and he never really gives me an answer (hurumph)... Lucky for HIM, these tickets were some that someone ELSE had, and invited HIM...

What this means though, is I have some time to myself. This also means I'm going to try to avoid having a panic attack every time I hear a noise in my house until he gets home...

I'm going to give the freezer paper stencils a try tonight. I picked out my first visual... Three ballerina images across the bottom side and front, with pointe shoes hanging down the back. I'm not describing it very well, but I have a good picture of it in my head. I pulled these images from the interwebs:
I was a ballerina for almost 15 years, so pictures like this always make me happy. I actually had a really hard time picking out just a few... but since the first three images all look at least similar I figured they would make for a good combination. I thought it would be a good first attempt.

I'm pretty excited to see how it actually works out. I drew the stencils last night, but forgot to take a picture of them when they were finished. I have to stop at the store today and pick up an Xacto knife.

In other news, went back the the doctor yesterday... and gave more blood. Ugh. Apparently the blood tests came back with information that needed retesting. The other test I had on Monday came back normal. Double Ugh.

The doctor said that I might, MIGHT have hypothyroidism. Which was on my list of options from before... but they like to retest to be sure, because sometimes it comes back "off" one time and then the next time comes back normal. So if this next test comes back low, then she's going to put me on a low dose thyroid and see if it levels me back out again. The test they did was called TSH, and shows how much thyroid stimulating hormone is in my blood. She said the normal amount for TSH is anywhere between 0.4 and 4. Mine was 5.6, since it's high that means I might have an under-active thyroid. She said it isn't terribly high, so she's not sure if it would be causing me to be this tired... but we'll see. Considering I have more than half of the other symptoms, I'm just going to stick with the idea that is actually what's wrong with me. We shall see.

Hopefully that wasn't terribly confusing. Apparently I looked COMPLETELY confused yesterday when the doctor was trying to explain everything to me. She asked me about 15 times if I understood what she was saying.

---

Are you sure you followed all of that?

Yes, YES I understand. I read all about this a week ago when I was deciding to make this appointment.

*uncertain look*

---

...I almost wish that I could have seen my face, because apparently - to her - it was the epitome of "durrrrrrrrr"... I'm imagining it to look sort of like this...
I think that might be my listening face... which means I look confused almost half of the day. Awesome.

The title of this post has nothing to do with anything inside it.

And I'm done.

Side Note: Hair

I need to get my hair dyed.
This is a conversation I've had in the bathroom mirror with myself for a week now:

Dear Mz.Soup,
You desperately need a hair appointment.
You're hair is NOT cute.
It hasn't been cute for almost a month now.
Suck it up and go.
Love you,
Mz.Soup

Happy (Rainy) Hump Day!

It's Wednesday.

That's about the extent of my insight.

I sat and stared at my blog yesterday for about 4 hours, trying to think of something interesting to write about. Obviously I never came up with anything, since there was no post. I finally decided that nothing happened Monday that was worthy of talking about. Other than my doctor's appointment. I figured it was better if I DIDN'T talk you through that, as it was a mildly traumatic experience for me and I didn't want to put anyone else through that without being face to face with them. The story involves a lot of whispering and face making, and is much better and less terrifying in person. I should find out today if anything came from the tests.

It WAS decided yesterday that I am trading the "my husband" for D.Soup. I guess that makes me A.Soup... or Mz.Soup. That makes me happy.

One of my friends at work sent out a link to a post at The Oatmeal this morning. She then turned around and informed me that THIS:

reminds her of me. Which is completely accurate. That's actually the exact list of terrifying things that goes through my brain if I have somehow managed to end up at home, alone, when its dark out. So thanks to The Oatmeal for portraying my terror so accurately.

On a different note... Calli had a playdate yesterday. With a half grown Bull Mastiff. Which means he's about 8 times her size and that his back came up to my waist. It was a little overwhelming, for all of us. I took a few pictures of them when they finally calmed down and were distracted by chew toys with D.Soup's phone. But since I fail at this whole "I'm going to upload pictures to my computer" concept, we'll see how long it takes for them to get here.

The girls in my office have been doing Weight Watchers. It's really been working for them. They talk about it all the time and have me looking at websites with Weight Watcher friendly recipes. So I talked to one of my friends about it and we've decided to start "Fake Watchers." Most of the information that you need from the real Weight Watchers meetings is available online, for free. The other part of WW that is really helpful for most people is the weekly weigh-in and support group. We are going to be each others support and record weekly weigh-ins where we both can see the results. We just started yesterday, so we'll see how it goes. I think this will be good for me, because I obviously don't have energy to work out after work and all I want to do is sleep all the time, so I'm gaining weight even though I'm not eating any more than before.

I picked up my loom to work on the infinity scarf a little more last night. Got about 10 lines in, then curled up in a ball on the couch and went to sleep. It was 9 pm. Doug woke me up about an hour later so that we could go to bed.

I think I've squeezed everything possible out of my brain.

Monday You Could Fall Apart

This weekend was busy.

Friday I went to my doctor's appointment. And then immediately left after the nurse at the desk told me that the wrong test had been scheduled (my fault) and that the prep was different for what I actually needed. Meaning that those 6 hours I starved myself were, in fact, unnecessary. I am going back today, and just need to drink 32 ounces of water an hour before. Hopefully they figure something out soon because I'm over feeling like I've got a knife sticking out of my abdomen.

Saturday I went to the movies with some friends. We saw Lincoln Lawyer (which was awesome) and HOP (which was good, but not what I had expected). I then went to Michael's and bought some of the craft stuff that I needed for the weekend. I then went home and took a nap because I was so tired. I actually remember at one point waking up to Calli barking at me/my husband, and actually starting to cry because "all I want to do is sleep and you keep waking me up." I obviously reverted to about 6 years old. This is what my exhaustion has forced me to become.

Sunday I got up, without any pain (victory!). I then had to wait for my husband to get up so I didn't have to leave Calli alone. She gets lonely. So finally I set off to the grocery store, and spent $50 on juice, cake mix and half of the ingredients for dinner that night. I think there was more in there, but that's all it felt like I had when I got to the register.

So I spent all day slaving over Cake Pops. Which are super cute and DELICIOUS. But quiet tedious to make. Not difficult, tedious. I took pictures of the process... but I think I forgot to take pictures of the finished product, so I fail. But I only made about half of them, so I have more to make soon! I'll be sure to do a better job with the finished product pictures next time. I'll hopefully get a chance to post them tonight, I was too lazy last night.

UPDATE... Here's the pictures, finally:

Started off with WAAYYYY too much cake

Rolled into ballsFinished Product

We also made an awesome dinner, which I took pictures of too. It was Salmon and Pasta with Asparagus and it was AMAZING. It was so amazing that we even sat at the dinner table instead of sitting on the couch with TV trays. That's saying something.

Action picture of my husband helping with dinner.

Hello lovelyClose up of the awesomeness

I also finished my newest pair of fingerless gloves, which I'm going to post on Etsy (tonight hopefully). So that will force me to transfer all the other pictures from yesterday to my computer. I was wayyyy too lazy to do it last night. I'll make sure to link the pictures of the new gloves also. I want to start working on a matching infinity scarf tonight also. It will be my first try, so we'll see how that goes.

Alas, I woke up this morning and got ready for work. When I got in my car, my abdomen started hurting all over again, and it hasn't stopped all day. I'm starting to think it's work related. Hah.

I need to come up with a better name for my husband.
I'm tired of typing "my husband."
I tried Hubby, and it just doesn't feel right.

Randomness

I was going to write this big long post of random junk this morning. And I was very excited about it. But then I had a meeting at 10, and then stuff to do out of that meeting (boo!). So I got distracted and never got to start...

Let's see if I can remember everything.

Numero Uno:
I went to the doctor yesterday. They took SIX VIALS of my blood. It's the first time I ever thought I was going to pass out while having blood drawn. The girl did an awesome job thought, and she was very worried about me the whole time (I get panicky around needles). I don't even have a bruise! That's unheard of for me!

So basically the doctor had about 1,290,584,376,904,819,327 things that could possibly be wrong with me, since now I have two problems - the exhaustion (mentioned before) and a new pain that started on Wednesday in my lower right abdomen. My body is falling apart for some reason, awesome.

Some of the things that I had already discovered MIGHT be the cause were on the list of things for the lab to check in my blood, so that was kind of neat. I also have to go today to get an ultrasound for them to check my (overshare) ovaries for cysts. I haven't been allowed to eat anything since 10:30 am... luckily I'm not starving today.


Numero Dos:
The government is still working on their decision-making. If they don't figure something out today/this weekend, I won't be working on Monday. I'm torn between being fairly stoked about this, to being nervous. I would really love a few days off to get my house back in order and to KNIT and to just generally get my life back together. But at the same time I don't want to not work. I also don't want to get excited about having some time off and then wake up Monday and have to come in... that would make me sad.


Numero Tres:
I'm thinking about making these this weekend, they look so delicious:

Numero Quatro:
Reading through other peoples blogs makes me want to be a more crafty person. I think I am going to go out this weekend and buy this book SouleMama:

Numero Cinco:
I also want to give freezer paper stencils a try and make some t-shirts. Maybe I can post a few of them on my Etsy site if they come out cute. That would be an awesome summer addition to the knitting stuff. I've been trying to think of something to make for the summer. I'm kind of excited.

But.. look at how cool this is! I really want to try it.

I need more time to be crafty.
And a bigger house to store my crafts.

Side Note: Operation Beautiful

I absolutely completely 100% LOVE this.

Best.Message.Ever

Last Night's Project

I recently became the mother of a beautiful baby girl...

Calliope

She's a 4 month old Golden Retriever/Australian Shepherd mix. The picture above is a fantastic picture of her, and I'm very proud of it... There's only a few others like it. Normally when I try to take a picture of her, it turns out like this...
or this...or this...
...so you can see why I'm so proud of the few moments where she will SIT STILL long enough for me to get a good shot. She's a little ball of energy... She's also a lean, mean, chewing machine. Luckily she mostly focuses those attentions on her toys and her bed, not anything that could cause problems between us.

Well, she's been really working on her bed recently. Especially when she gets in trouble. She will go take her frustrations out on the corners of her bed. Which is why, last night it was looking like this:
Now obviously some of those spots are large enough for her to pull stuffing through... Which was of course all over my living room. So I decided it was time for some much needed patchwork.

I had a pair of jeans that was sadly ready for the trashcan...

I HATE when this happens.

So I decided to recycle them:I used my awesome, better-than-you, sewing skills. I made sure to use RED thread... so that you could see how fantastic of a sewing fiend I am.

Don't be jealous of my skillz

And patched it all up for her, top and bottom...

She thankfully doesn't mind that it looks completely ghetto. And she hasn't tried to chew through the jean (yet). We shall see how long it lasts.

I probably should have just bought her a new bed.
My extreme love of green won't let me replace it...

My tummy is growling.

So my friends at work introduced me to http://www.skinnytaste.com/.

It is an awesome blog full of delicious looking recipes. My husband and I are going to try some of them, so I am currently scrolling through copying all the recipes that look interesting so that we can compile a grocery list.

It's making me SO HUNGRY. Almost every entry has something delicious looking.

I want to stick some of the pictures from her blog here, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to stop at just one or two. Just go look for yourself! I've been drooling over here for 2 hours now.

Okay, just one sneak peak:

I'm gonna go gnaw on my arm or something now, since I'm here for 3 more hours and only have 1 snack left.

I'm so hungry.

I'm exhausted...

ALL THE TIME anymore. It's really starting to get annoying. For example, it is currently 10:30 am, and I could lay my head down on my desk at work RIGHT NOW and go to sleep, no problem.

I thought I had fixed the problem, when I discovered that my "Active Metabolism" vitamin that I was taking every day had the same amount of caffeine in each pill as if I was chugging 4 cans of Coke every morning. I thought, "no WONDER I'm so exhausted at 4 pm every single day, I'm crashing out of my caffeine high." So I stopped taking them, and said "I'll give myself a few days to get them out of my system and I'll be back to normal" NOPE.

I thought maybe I wasn't getting enough sleep. But I've been sleeping the same amount of time for years now, and usually do pretty well once I've had an hour or so to get adjusted to being awake again. So it could be this, and the fact that I'm getting older is just not allowing me to soldier through the way I could when I was in college. OPTION 1.

I also thought about sleep apnea, because I wake up in the middle of the night ALL THE DAMN TIME. But I don't really snore, so I don't know if that's really an option. I guess I should still label it. OPTION 2.

So of course, now I'm doing research. I'm not a hypochondriac, I don't automatically assume since I've got some of the symptoms of these illnesses that it HAS to be what's wrong with me. I just like to know my options -- because there could actually be something "wrong", instead of me just randomly being tired all the time.

UPDATE: It's now 11:15 am, and I no longer feel that I have to fight to keep my head upright and my eyes open.

Anemia symptoms - Dizziness or light-headedness (especially when standing up or with exertion), FATIGUE or lack of energy, Headaches, Problems concentrating, Shortness of breath (especially during exercise), Problems thinking, Tingling. Now I'm not exactly 100% on the "Tingling," but I know I've experienced all the other things listed off. Although I must admit that the dizziness and shortness of breath during exercise is MOST LIKELY because I haven't been exercising and I'm overweight. OPTION 3.

Hypothyroidism symptoms - Feeling TIRED, WEAK, or depressed, Dry skin and brittle nails, Not being able to stand the cold, Memory problems or having trouble thinking clearly. OPTION 4.

It could also be the aforementioned overweightness... Which I have plans of dealing with, if I can ever make it home without almost falling asleep in the car because I'm SO TIRED. We were actually supposed to start P90 last night, but it was 8:30 by the time we got home and had dinner and I said NO. OPTION 5.

I'm also going to post this as an option, even though I know it's most likely not the case: I could be pregnant. I know it's not really an option because my body has been making me think I'm pregnant for about 4 months now, and every time I start to believe it and then POOF (overshare...) there's my period. So I'm going to list it, but I'm not really considering it. OPTION 6.

So this is my current dilemma. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it. I've been trying to let it work itself out of my system for about a month now, I think I've given it just about enough time. If I can't get it figured out on my own, I'm going to be "that person" and go to the doctor because I'm tired. I'd rather not do that.

Also, my husband is not helping. He's starting to get "irritated" at me because I never want to do ANYTHING anymore. No exercising, no housework, nothing... I just can't motivate. I also can't figure out how to explain to him and actually have him understand that I don't know why I'm so tired all the time, and that I can't help that I lay down on the couch every afternoon and sleep. I said to him this morning that we have a bunch of stuff that needs to get done around the house and he goes "I know, I've been trying to do stuff but you are always sleeping." So now I feel frustrated at myself for being tired, frustrated at him for not understanding, and guilty all at the same time.

And now I'm going to stop because this has almost crossed the line from "rant/research" to "sob story."

Moral of the story:
Being this tired all the time is abnormal for me.
I do not approve.

Hello Monday.

So as expected... it was windy, rainy and cold over the weekend while we were at the beach. But even with all that mess, it was a fabulous time.

Friday we ate in (I made Cheeseburger Pie! Yum!) and played games. It was a nice and relaxing.

Saturday the boys decided to go play golf. Which left my friend and I to go SHOPPING... I got a bunch of stuff. Most importantly, a dress for the wedding I'm in next month:

Front

Back

I also got myself a new bag. As much as it saddened me to replace the bag named after me, it was a pain to carry around on my elbow. The strap that was made to carry on your shoulder didn't stay in place and would always fall down. So now, I'm toting around this beautiful masterpiece:

(Its way bigger than it looks in this picture)

Since it was my friend's husband's birthday weekend, we went out to a small bar in Ocean City on Saturday night. While we were out we found the most amazing dresses to wear out, even though we would be completely overdressed... we didn't care. It would be totally worth it:

But then, of course, the Gods decided that we weren't allowed to wear our new cuteness. On the way home from shopping, it started pouring, and I mean POURING down rain and giant sleet. It was a disaster. So we decided it wasn't worth potentially ruining our beautiful new outfits to spend time at a place where they weren't going to be appreciated anyway.

Now we just need to find a place to wear them :) That shouldn't be too difficult.

Oh, I also bought 3 new pair of shoes. I can't seem to find pictures of them anywhere online, so I'll have to take my one pictures and upload them here.

Of course, Sunday was beautiful and warmer than any other day this weekend. And we couldn't really enjoy much of it because we were packing up and preparing to make the trek back home. Although I did get to take Calli for a walk in the morning. It was good until we encountered two GIANT dogs and Calli nervous tinkled all over herself while they investigated her. My poor baby.

The other good news is that my husband got a new phone yesterday. His Droid had been acting up and he was continually raging about how he hated it. So he now has the new HTC Thunderbolt, I am completely jealous... I have to wait until July to get a new phone.

Patience is not something I'm usually good at.

Everybody's workin' for the Weekend!

I'm going to the beach this weekend. I want it to look like this:


But I know it's not going to. A girl can dream... and wait a few more months I guess.

The weather channel is providing this as the forecast for the weekend:


I think it's going to be a jeans and sweatshirt weather allll weekend. Which, honestly, is alright with me.

I'm just excited to be going down for the weekend. Hanging out with friends. And getting Calli (my dog) acclimated to the long distance ride and the house itself.

We didn't get much of our packing done last night. So we had to do it this morning, in a half sleep haze while getting ready for work. This obviously resulted in us forgetting pretty much everything that wasn't completely necessary - video games, board games... So I asked my husband if we could leave a little bit early and go get them. NO. He, apparently, is not in the same mindset as I am, where being stuck inside at the beach house with very little entertainment will most likely end up being problematic.

My friend and I are now devising a scheme where we can magically NEED to stop on the way down. "OH LOOK, WALMART..... How did we end up in the game section?" Here's a board game that we can play for HOURS, this will totally make up for not packing all that stuff this morning. Too bad we couldn't just stop at the house really quick.

The moral of this story is:

I'm excited for this weekend.

UPDATE: Crisis averted. I talked him into going home... So we didn't have to use our scheme at all. The weekend was awesome :)