The Quest for Hotness: Mile Marker One

Well, here we are at Mile Marker One... my birthday. My goal here was 205. Yesterday, I was at 206. Last night, I had two Margaritas and Fish and Chips to celebrate my birthday. Today, I weigh in at 207.

BUT

I am not discouraged. Honestly, I've made only a half-hearted effort this past month or so. Little to no exercise, and more desserts than I really should have indulged in. So... I have lost nine pounds, and that makes me happy.

Today won't be a good day for the diet, since I'm eating out for lunch AND dinner AND having buttered popcorn at the theater when I see Wall-E. I have never bought into the "plain popcorn is better" mentality. I do understand it may be true, but that fake buttery substance movie theaters use? The stuff that must be made of plastic and wax? Yeah... that stuff is awesome. I'm not giving that up no way, no how.

Then tomorrow, I need to kick it up a notch. Especially if I want to meet my next goal... Amy's birthday, which is only about a week away. ACK!

Single and Lovin' It

Chris is at Origins. This is the fourth year he's gone, and once again, he is not here on my birthday. Scum.

The first challenge will be keeping the kids entertained, and that's all set. Tonight, we had pizza and watched Dora, Diego, and Backyardigans. They are in bed now, and with any luck, will be snoozing soon. Tomorrow night, we're hitting Monkey Joe's with the Gundlachs (Today is John/Geoff's birthday! WOOT!) Then Friday is a Parents' Night Out at the daycare, which Athena has requested I take her to. I may call some friends to see if they want to go out. (Jen and Brandy... if you're reading this... I'll call ya!)

Saturday is my birthday. My wonderful mother-in-law has agreed to watch the kids overnight! So, I'm headed first to Greensboro to see my mom for lunch, then to High Point to visit friends and watch Wall-E with a bunch of Disney Geeks, including my friend George. (What does one WEAR to a Disney Geekfest, I wonder?) Another friend Jack (a former bartender) has sent me a birthday drink recommendation, which I shall try either Friday, Saturday, or both... depending on the circumstances.

I'll be back here Sunday, and may try to take the kids to the pool. We'll see. Then Monday is back at work and Chris comes home Monday night.

The second challenge is to keep the kids healthy. For two years (see here and here), one or more of the kids was sick or cheating death whenever he went to this conference. So far, everyone seems to be very healthy. Keeping my fingers crossed!

And there is some reward to getting it all done alone. Chris does it all the time. Now I get to prove I can do it too! Yay me!

A House Divided

The Universities in North Carolina have a really long history, and along with that, an incredibly strong fan base. This is particularly true with our ACC schools here in the Triangle Area. UNC, Duke and NC State are all within thirty miles of each other, and this leads to strong rivalries, and, oddly enough, marriages.

Chris and I have such a marriage. He went to NC State (boooooooooo) and I went to UNC (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay). We are a House Divided.

Just to give you some idea of how big a deal this can be... I'll tell you a story of when Chris and I first started dating. He had made it quite clear that he was very interested in me. We were on our first date after we had been chatting at game nights and online for a few weeks. He was at my house, sitting on the couch, and we were watching Return of the Jedi. We were chatting... and our schools came up.

I am a little bit older than he is. I already knew he was at NC State in grad school, and I had just finished grad school in Greensboro. So I had already adjusted to the idea that he was the enemy, academically speaking. He, however, did not know where I had done my undergrad. When I told him, his eyes widened and his expression was easier to read than a large print copy of Good Night Moon. He was making a decision... can I actually date a UNC grad? Can we have a future together? Can she be half as awesome as I think she is if she bleeds Carolina Blue?

Obviously he came to his senses and our relationship moved forward. But, there are still issues. One of the major ones is the kids.

We had to make a pact when I learned I was pregnant with Athena. Neither of us were allowed to buy any of our own school's merchadise for the kids. Others could buy for us, but we could not. Soon, the NC State stuff started coming in from Brant, but Jason followed up with a healthy dose of UNC. We both have good friends, apparently.

Which brings us to today. Recently Marcus picked up one of Chris' NC State ball caps. He wore it around, which was terribly cute as it's way too big for him. But he loves it, so Chris adjusted it to as small a size as he can, and Marcus wears it all the time.

Naturally, this has been bothering me. So Mom and I were in dear old Chapel Hill on Friday, and she learned that Marcus was in need of a Carolina ball cap. She purchased a very cute one that is actually in his size.

I gave it to him yesterday.

He wore it for ten minutes.

He tossed it aside and last night, he slept with the NC State hat.

I have failed.









But there is still hope for Athena.

The Screwing: The Final Frontier

So my loyal readers (all six of them) will remember back in January, we discovered some major negligence on the part of our builders and arranged to have it fixed. Well, for those of you who are wondering "What ever happened with that whole deal?" here is your answer.

They fixed it. Yesterday. Finally.

For the past six months, we've been going back and forth with the warranty guy. He's been very nice and very helpful, but he kept having to bring someone else to look at it. An engineer, a contractor, another engineer, an HVAC guy... the list was endless. Finally, when I was at Disney in May, he called and said he only had ONE MORE GUY to come see it. I felt like my crawl space was being featured in "Homebuilding Freaks" magazine.

So Chris stayed home yesterday morning to be here when they came to fix it. This was because they thought they'd need to come into the house to fiddle with the HVAC return or some such nonsense. As it turns out, they did not. In fact, they didn't even tell Chris when they left. The warranty guy came by later and left a sticky that the work was done. Now all that is left is that he needs to come repair the garage floor, and we're done with this. Only cost to us: $150 to have the walls professionally dried and treated for mold.

Rock on.

Hermione Strikes Again

Thank all that is good and holy that Chris does the laundry (up until the folding part). Look what he found in the dirty clothes this morning. Good thing he found it too... as it was tiny. It would not have survived the spin cycle, methinks.

Clearly, Athena thinks it's the coolest thing ever. I believe she used the word "cute."

Meanwhile, the poor cat is looking all around the floor of our room trying to figure out where the thing got to. Athena threw it into the bushes, so Hermione will probably be confused the rest of the day.

The Quest for Hotness: Return to the Gym

So I'm a few weeks into the Quest, which means it's officially time to get off all that ass I'm trying to rid myself of and start exercising. I don't suppose I HAVE to exercise, but I prefer to eat more liberally than most diets would allow, and therefore exercise is key. Of course, pair that with the fact that we have been paying for a gym membership that has gone largely unused these last few months and, well... it's time to get hoppin'.

So I had a half day at work today, and some plans I had fell through, so instead of moping about, I made the most of it. I came home, had lunch, ran a few errands, then, dutifully checked in at the gym. I then realized I had not brought water, and had to buy a bottle for $2 in their little shop. *sigh* I really had to though... I cannot work out without water.

I walked into the swanky locker room and stopped short... there was a MAN in the locker room, doing something with the towel bin. Fixing it, I suppose. I looked around... yep... women's locker room. Looked at him again... looked around... no naked women apparent. Hmmmmmmmmm. Finally, in what seemed like hours but was probably about ten seconds, all was explained when another attendant (female) shouted, "Okay, ladies... all clear... the man is leaving the locker room." Whew! For a moment, I thought we had gone all coed.

I changed, bopped upstairs, and jumped on a treadmill. BNL blaring from my iPod, I set the timer to 30 minutes on the "random" incline program and took off. Now, almost always, I sort of cheat my 30 minutes. When the timer hits 25, I hit "cool down"and do a five minute cool down... which on the treadmill is really just standing still with finesse. But today, I took it all the way to 30, and THEN I did my cooldown. YAY ME!

After that, I did some time on the machines... legs, abs, butt. Good times. I did quite well, I think, and the only real demoralizing part of the whole thing was the fact that I was there when school let out, and so most of the people working out with me were young, nubile, teen girls and their pimply, gangly counterparts. In fact, while on the treadmill, a young girl jumped on the treadmill in front of me. She had "CHEER!" eblazoned across her ass on the orange short-shorts she was wearing.

"Great!" I thought. "I don't have to Quest for the Hotness... I can just follow it!" *sigh*