Fabulous Fitness Friday, Tip #10

You PROBABLY have today off, right? Let's just assume you do.

SO, now that we've all gorged ourselves on excessive amounts of turkey, cranberries, stuffing, candied yams, green bean casserole, homemade bread, creamed corn, potatoes au gratin, apple pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, and cherry pie (and that was only for "dinner" - let's not forget about the breakfast out so we didn't have to do those dishes and the "taste-testing" up until dinner, plus the multiple late night snacks since we MUST eat Thanksgiving dinner hours before we'd normally be eating dinner...), now that we've all done that, let's use our day off wisely.

Take a long walk, play some pick-up football, throw a frisbee, actually use the basketball hoop out in front of your house despite the fact that your kids (and neighbors) will give you odd looks, jump in the leftover leaves that fell after the last street pick-up and will thus remain until Spring, and of course, wash all 358 dishes piled on your counter from yesterday.

20 Things I'm Thankful For This Thanksgiving

Twenty things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving –

1. The Energizer Bunny for being the most perfect, most beautiful child ever, and the only thing capable of making Mommy sound like a total sap.

2. The energy to keep up with the Energizer Bunny…or at least if not “keep up,” not keel over as he runs me ragged day after day.

3. The Unsupportive Louse’s never-ending support.

4. The Walking Guilt Trip’s multiple guilt trips. I’m not sure if I could cope with a let-down without a guilt trip added on top.

5. The Mooch and the rent that I actually got from him this month, allowing us to actually eat turkey on Thanksgiving day and not some ground turkey I had to press into the shape of a turkey to make myself believe I could afford a real turkey.

6. The Princess’s best friend’s family who are keeping her from being lonely and deserted on Thanksgiving.

7. The PILLs who are sure to keep the Energizer Bunny alive if we are ever incapable of doing so ourselves (financially or otherwise).

8. The many friends I have who keep leaving me to move on to bigger and better people, places or things. No, I’m not bitter. Thankful is the word you’re looking for. Really.

9. The house I absolutely love in the neighborhood I used to go out of my way to run through because it’s so beautiful and I was so jealous of everyone lucky enough to live here.

10. The terrible economy for causing some poor couple to have to short sell their house, thus allowing me to live in a beautiful house in a perfect neighborhood and no longer be jealous of every one here.

11. The thousands of squirrels still managing to burrow into our house with new holes practically every day, reminding me that if I am ever truly too broke to buy food, I can always just kill one of them.

12. The job I still have that keeps me from having to eat squirrel on a daily basis.

13. The boss at the job I still have for being an all-around good guy. And not being sucked in by the other boss I have who is just really not an all-around good guy.

14. The President for believing that science is in fact…a science…and not decreasing the budget for said science, hence allowing my position to still exist, hence keeping me in a job, and possibly curing your mother’s/aunt’s/cousins/great-uncle’s neighbor’s multiple sclerosis. In 87 years. When they’ve already been dead for 62. But your niece’s step-cousin’s goddaughter’s son will care.

15. Facebook for allowing me to occasionally avoid real work while at the job I still have, but managing to make it look like I’m working in case either boss stops by, AND keeping me in touch with all the friends who have left me for more “important” things like school, jobs, family. More important than me? Really?

16. The wonderful mass transit system in Ann Arbor which keeps us from having to buy parking at the University, which would be sure to put us in the poorhouse within a month., and from slowly destroying the earth one smoke fume at a time.

17. The Engine of Chaos and Destruction (as the Unsupportive Louse loves to call our dog) for not destroying too many things or eating too much food from the counters, my backpack, my lunch bag, the diaper bag, or the pantry this year. And only eating one cup of butter at a time because I can’t imagine the smell the puke would have made if you’d eaten all four sticks from the counter.

18. Krista, the bitchy female cop who my first husband slept with, for sleeping with him, so that I could divorce him and move off of that god-awful Long Island and meet the fantastic new man that is the Unsupportive Louse and thus live this fantastic life.

19. My writing critique group, for keeping me from sounding like a total dumbass every day of the year. Well, in my writing anyway.

20. The massive sarcasm and wit I’m gifted with. (It’s a gift, I swear it.)

Be A Good Person

Do some early on-line bidding type Christmas shopping and support the family of a sweet little 2-year old boy with neuroblastoma, Thursday (the 26th) through the 6th of December.

http://supahmommy.blogspot.com/2009/11/jadens-jingle-bell-bonanaza-home-page.html

Or "catch" Santa Claus (or other holiday character) on camera (to benefit Jaden) here

A Love Letter

Dear Unsupportive Louse,

Despite our agreement that when I make dinner, you do the dishes, and when you make dinner, I do the dishes, throwing a frozen pizza in the oven on Sunday night when I'm not home and then not even saving any for me when you knew I was expecting dinner when I got home barely qualifies as making dinner at all, and it certainly doesn't mean I have to do the dishes that you've been avoiding for the last five days.

Love always,
Your pissed wife

Blatant Advertisement

I've "discovered" an awesome new ecards website...and I'm kinda in love with it. I may or may not have gone through my e-mail address book and sent a card to everyone I could think of because they're kind of hilarious.

I may have even sent people cards I think THEY should use. Yes, yes, I did.

To stop myself from further embarrassment and/or harassment, I'm just going to harass all of my wonderful blog readers for a moment.

http://www.someecards.com

Fabulous Fitness Friday, Tip #9

Next week is Thanksgiving. So we're all planning out our Thanksgiving menus. Obviously we all fully intend on cooking way too much and gorging ourselves on what we've cooked. That's fine, it's tradition, it's way too hard to get people to ignore tradition, I wouldn't even think to try. (Especially since I'd be even more hypocritical than normal...)

So, instead of pretending we won't eat too much on Thanksgiving this year, plan to not eat quite as much in the week leading up to it. Add more salad or other vegetables to your menus and less meat, fewer desserts and healthier snacks, less soda and juice and more water and milk. But it'll be easier this week, because every time you think about that stale cookie left out on your office counter, picking up the soda can, ordering dessert, or leaving off the vegetables in place of more entree, you can remind yourself - Thanksgiving is SO MUCH MORE worth the extra calories!!

Real Men Don't Cuddle

Warning- possible TMI. But you'll get over it.

We got home from a friend's house this weekend, at which I was the designated "DD" and the Unsupportive Louse was the designated "Parent Who Doesn't Get Out Enough so Gets Wasted at a Dinner Party" and put the Energizer Bunny to bed. As it's almost 11 o'clock, he actually falls asleep fairly quickly.

SO...I ask the Unsupportive Louse, "Are you too drunk to...?" and wiggle my eyebrows suggestively.

"I have noooOO idea." (when he's drunk, he frequently puts weird emphasis on his words, and I'm pretty sure he has no idea he does this.)

"hmph" Since he only continues to lay unmoving, I try to figure out the answer without him guessing what I'm trying to do. This is much more difficult than it sounds.

Apparently he figured it out anyway because he wraps his arms around me and says,
"Sometimes I just want to cuddle."

Who's the man in this relationship anyway??





And now some words of wisdom from the Energizer Bunny, which are clearly very important, as he's typed them all in caps. If you would like to learn to read Energizer Bunny's language, please send your name, address, and 3 easy payments of $39.95 made payable to "Fictional Penney" and we guarantee your book and complimentary CD will arrive in approximately 6 months.

J L CXHXRCTJVKYBVCTJ RXEZTWQCRZTWEXYTVI6CREXRMC EXHZGWQF
H HBHJYTFJGJH.KJHHBNNMNNNNN BHYYYYYHN NH NB CF[;PO ONGHDSASDH./,FSXSW2

Fabulous Fitness Fridays, Tip #8

Put down the fuuuulipping leaf blower and pick up a fuc*ing rake.

You do not need to use gas to blow the leaves off your tiny ass front yard. Mother Nature is CRYING people, while you’re all getting fatter! It doesn’t take THAT much longer to rake, plus you actually get EXERCISE doing it (I know, the horror!) and you don’t make all the neighborhood dogs go crazy. Bonus!

(And P.S. – if you choose to use a leaf blower? Don’t choose to do so at 7am on a Saturday morning. ‘Cause if you wake up the Energizer Bunny? You’re watching him until I get up. And I’m sleep deprived, so when I sleep in…I sleep IN.)

Would you still love me if...?

When my radio alarm went off this morning, the hosts were discussing what apparently everyone and their mother has heard about (except me, because as a California hippie, I don’t watch TV and therefore effectively sequester myself from the gossip line that is the news) – this man who had to have his entire face removed because of some bizarre nasal infection.

I vainly searched (for almost an entire minute) for the photo of the dude, but eh, you’ve probably all seen it anyway. Besides, it might look odd if my boss walked by and there was a picture of a faceless man on my monitor.

So anyway, these people are describing the horrors this man went through and I just have to ask the Unsupportive Louse: “Would you still love me if I had my nose and eyes and practically my whole face removed?”

Without a second’s hesitation (despite the fact that he was in the other room and hadn’t heard any of the radio discussion) he answers:

“Yes, but I’d sleep around.”

November is NaNoWriMo!

What I'm saying is...I have more important things to do this month than entertain you people. That's all.

That's right, go on now.

Shoo, shoo.

(Um...but come back soon, k?)

www.nanowrimo.org

Fabulous Fitness Fridays, Tip #7

If you’re like me, you always eat all the leftover Halloween candy that didn’t get passed out to the kids on Halloween night.

AND if you’re like me, you always buy an extra bag of candy, *just in case* there TONS of kids this year.

So, NEXT YEAR, my advice to you is to make that extra bag of “candy” those little brown bags of pretzels that are sold right along side all the not-nearly-as-good for you sorts.

Then, when you fill up your candy basket, leave the pretzels out. Only put the “real” candy in first. Then, when there’s an entire bag of Halloween goodies left, it’ll just be pretzels, and NOT an entire bag of mini-Snickers. (With Halloween wrappings so you can’t possibly pass them off as treats for the NEXT season, and they therefore must be eaten immediately.)

Female Pill

My mother and father-in-law (whom I like to think of collectively as the Pills) came to visit. While I sincerely do like my in-laws, they still are slightly insane, as all people are required to become once entitled with the words "in" and "law." And, after all, if a girl can't make fun of her in-laws, what would be left in life??

So I would like to share with you a few REAL conversations with my mother-in-law -

at the dinner table, halfway through the meal that my mother-in-law cooked because she loves being the Unsupportive Louse's mommy...

me (to the Unsupportive Louse) - "How was your presentation today?"

UL - "Eh. It's done."

Female Pill - "You don't like it?" it becomes clear after a moment that she's referring to the food we've been eating for the last fifteen minutes, and not actually anything to do with the question I just asked.

UL - "N--" even the Unsupportive Louse is smart enough to catch this...responding 'no' could be disastrous -- "Penney was just asking about my meeting at work. I was just saying I was glad it was over."

Female Pill - "Oh. well, if you don't like it, there's always leftover chicken in the fridge."

I simply blink in her direction. Best not to defend or deny a non-statement. Ignore.



after our heater broke...on a weekend...while they were visiting and the highs were in the 40s (...by the way, if you're interested in offering sympathy...or money...we had to pay $517 to have it fixed)

Female Pill - "This space heater actually works great." This said with a shocked expression on her face, despite the fact that I've already told her as much two times already. "It was really quite chilly when we first came down, but now the whole downstairs is rather nice." I casually glance at the thermostat, which is in the living room while she and the space heater are in the kitchen; it reads 72 degrees. I keep the house at 66 all winter.

me - "I told The Unsupportive Louse we might just have to use the space heater all winter if it ends up costing too much to fix the real heater; just leave it downstairs during the day and move it upstairs overnight."

Female Pill, laughing at my obvious stupidity - "You'd have to all strap one to your backs and take it with you everywhere you went!"

Did she follow the conversation...or did I just miss something?



at a restaurant where the in-laws very generously treated us to lunch - we're just ordering drinks -

me - "Can we get a milk for the little one" (pointing towards the "little one")

Waitress - "We don't have milk."

me - "You don't have milk?"

Female Pill - "They don't have milk?" A pause during which I request water instead. "They really don't have milk? What kind of restaurant doesn't have milk?" We're at Buffalo Wild Wings. For all intensive purposes a sports bar. That kind of restaurant doesn't have milk.

Two minutes later, the drinks arrive. The Female Pill picks up The Energizer Bunny's plastic cup with straw. "Don't you want some milk, Energizer? Why don't you drink some milk?"

me - "It's not milk."

Female Pill - "Oh. It's not? Is it water then?"



the males are talking about football, and begin discussing a former USC player who went to high school with the Unsupportive Louse and was drafted in the tenth round or something and was all annoyed about it...my silly little female brain didn't follow the whole conversation (possibly more to do with the Energizer Bunny than the femininity of my brain, but let's not split hairs) here's what I DID hear -
Male Pill - "Was he a year below you at school? Or was he in your class?"

Unsupportive Louse - "Uh, I think he was younger. I never had any classes with him." UL went to a fairly small private school

FEmale Pill - "Yes, he was." all three nod knowinlgy. Conversation continues surrounding the horror of being the tenth round draft pick, using dude's name continuously. I no longer remember dude's name. Blame the female brain if you must.

FEmale Pill, pretty much out of nowhere, in the middle of a sentence, breaks in, "Didn't you go to high school with him?"

Date Night!!

I go to pull on my cute little short date-night skirt, proudly look down at my long sexy, freshly shaved…crap.

I forgot to shave a leg. Not my legs. One LEG. Singular.

And this isn’t like in high school when I shaved one leg every other day so they were always practically perfect, AND on weekends I shaved them both, both days anyway.

No, no, this is “Penney has an Energizer Bunny, has been working 60 hours a week and hasn’t had a date night in a month” legs. This is bad. One leg is smooth and glistening. The other leg? Hairier than a porcupine on Rogaine.

I didn't have time to dry-shave (I have the Energizer Bunny, I'm always running late)...so I pulled on knee high socks and hoped nobody looked at the six inches of left leg that was now showing.

The Unsupportive Louse didn't notice, so I'm taking that to mean no one else did either!