Today I found love...

Let me be clear, this is not a romantic post.  Bells did not ring and fireworks did not go off.  As I get older, I realize that love is not romance and flowers.  There is more to it than that.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Let me start this story at the beginning.  7:00 am this morning to be exact.

My alarm goes off at 7:00 this morning.  My first task of the day is to let the four dogs outside.  Four, are you insane?  Who has four dogs?  Not us.  We have three.  The fourth is a stow away.  We are babysitting our friends' dog while they are on vacation.  Let me add that we have three of the laziest dogs ever.  And I do mean EVER. They are so lazy in fact, that I can put them in any position with any props and take pictures all night.  Did you see my posts on Tricknee and Walking Dead.  I mean seriously, see what I mean?  So lazy.  The dog we are babysitting is the exact opposite.  He is much younger than our dogs.  He is around 2 and there is plenty of puppy left in him.  Also, I should mention that our dogs weigh about 30 pounds and that is all of them together.  Nobennyno, that is what we call him, weighs about 100 pounds more than that.  He is massive (compared to our dogs.)

Back to this morning, 7:00... alarm... dogs... continuing on.  So I get up to let my herd out.  And I am hit my a powerful smell.  The kind of smell you don't soon forget.  I let all four dogs out and go in search of the present they left me.  I thought for sure the culprit was Nobennyno.  His gifts are usually quite large and unpleasant to clean up.  But what present of this nature wouldn't be unpleasant to clean up?  Nope, Nobennyno is innocent for once in his life.  The guilty party was one of my sweet, innocent babies.  Well maybe sweet and innocent goes a little to far.  The moral of the story is that one of my three dogs, which I might add all sleep in the same crate and night, has had explosive diarrhea.  Imagine, if you will, what it might be like to put three dogs in a box, have one of their colons explode and then leave them in said box for hours.  That image is what I discovered.  My poor baby girl had poop on her face, her head, her back, her body, her stomach, her feet.  So basically everywhere.

At this point I have to wake The Smooch.  I go to the bedroom.  "Smooch?" I say gently.  "Code Red!"  The Smooch springs out of bed (I have never seen this happen before) and is ready to deal with whatever happens next.  I feel the first stirring deep down inside and I think I might be smitten.  He grabs all three dogs and ushers them into the bathroom and immediantly starts bathing them all.  I start to think maybe I like him a lot.  He bathes each dog in turn and I dry each one off.  While he finishes bathing and drying the dogs, I tackle the crate.

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After the crate is cleaned, I realize that I am an hour late for work and still need to get ready.  I start rushing towards the bathroom when The Smooch stops me.  He looks deep into my eyes and says "Baby, why don't I go pick up McDonald's breakfast for you while you are getting ready."  That's it.  Call my mother, I am in love.  The Smooch knew that I needed a little something to make my day better.  That's when I found love, in the bottom of a McDonald's bag. 

It amazes me how my definition of love has changed.  It used to be special presents, dinners out, or telling me that I look nice. Now it is cleaning up dog shit and buying me McDonalds.  I am not going to lie.  I don't know if this makes me feel older, wiser and happier or sad and pathetic.  What do you think?  What does love mean to you?  I want to hear your stories too!!

I am Hangry!!

I am Hangry.  Hangry is this ugly combination of anger caused by being hungry.  I am hangry.  Why you ask.  Against my will, my coworkers made me sign up for Weight Watchers.  You've heard of it, with their Jessica Simpsons and that black actress/singer whose name I can't remember right now because I am hangry.  I can't think when I am hangry.

So maybe my coworkers didn't force me against my will.  I mean, they didn't take their big ole butts and sit on me until I did it.  No, we agreed as a group that we should eat better and be healthier and I begrudgingly agreed.  Since The Smooch and I got married, I have gained about..... ok, I can't say it here.  But just now that the number is close to my age.  The nurse at the doctors office calls this happy weight.  Weight you gain because you are happily in love.  But this happy weight is not making me feel very happy.  It is making me feel old and fat and out of shape.  Should I have to take a nap every time I climb a set of stairs?  So it is time to lose the happy weight.

A while back, I decided that It's Time To Buy Lycra Or To Start Working Out.  So I bought some lycra.  The other day I was telling The Smooch that I was feeling a little self conscious about my weight.  He suggested that if I was feeling self conscious, I should where my lycra.  At which point I lifted up my shirt and said what the f*&# does this look like, then I ran out in tears.  I was already wearing it.  He ran out of the room yelling "This is why I hate it when you ask me questions!"  Poor Smooch.

So I joined Weight Watchers.  This is the start of my third week.  I think that the first two weeks are the hardest.  Your body is adjusting to eating 1/4 of the food you were eating before.  I have to tell you that those first two weeks were really hard.  Every day, I pass this billboard on my way to work.  The billboard says that 1 in 4 children are hungry.  I eat breakfast at work so the drive to work is awful and the HANGRY level is high.  So every time I see this billboard, I can't help but think, I am that child thanks to Weight Watchers.  This is a bad joke and I now that.  Please don't send me hate mail.  But in my hangry, pre-breakfast state, I hate that billboard. 

I think that maybe I would rather be fat and eat.  I do love food.  I love all the great combinations of local food Columbus, Ohio has to offer.  I love going to the farmer's market and trying all the new flavors of local cheeses and honeys.  And I love the local bakeries.  I love try some new sweet concoction.  I don't even know how to begin calculating the points for that.  I only know how to calculate the items of the processed food I get at the grocery store.  And that is only because they have barcodes and Weight Watchers calculates the points for me when I scan the barcode.  How do I figure out the points to a homemade baguette and that delicious local chèvre cheese?

But I am starting my third week and I am feeling better.  I am even losing a little weight.  But I realized something.  I think that maybe the only thing holding my boobs up is the supportive shelf that my stomach has created.  If I lose weight, will my boobs drop to my belly button?  My boobs held themselves up in my 20s but now that I am in my thirties, gravity has started to take hold of them.  When I run, I have to hold my boobs in place so they don't bounce around so much.  Do you know how hard it is to run while holding your boobs.  This is why I don't run.  That and my Tricknee.  If I were to run, I would probably just fall down.

Before - Perky breasts sit on the belly shelf.  Disregard the mangled arms.

After - Skinny but my boobs go to belly button

So join me in this adventure if you will.  But feel free to join me in spirit alone.  And each time you eat something without thinking of the points, think of me.  And please forgive me if I seem hangry and grouchy.

Random Words of Encouragement 2014

Tomorrow is Friday, January 17th.  But some people will know this day as The Second Annual Random Words of Encouragement Day.  People from all over the world will be leaving random notes with encouraging words for strangers every where they go.  They way I came across this event fits in with the theme the of event.  A random person that I do not know created this event.  She invited some of her Facebook friends, one of my Facebook friends invited me and I invited some of my Facebook friends.  And this continued until 695 people accepted the challenge.  So this random person had an idea last year on her 30th birthday.  She wanted to change the course of a day for other people using kind words.  This year she is offering up a challenge.  She wanted 100 people to place 5 random words of encouragement around the town they live in.  So far 695 people have answered the call to arms and tomorrow, they will be leaving these little notes everywhere they go.  There are people in more than half of the United States and in multiple countries participating tomorrow.


What if we all started sharing random bits of kindness with strangers?  Could we create a movement?  The answer is yes.  In fact, one single lady created this movement.  What will you do today?
 

 

Random words ready to sent into the world.

Looking for more information??  Check out these sites.  I would love to see your pictures so feel free to share them with me and remember to use the hashtag #RWOE2014!

Facebook Event - Random Words of Encouragement

 

Britches & Boots - Random Words of Encouragement

If I had a million dollars, I....

This weeks Finish the Sentence Friday's topic is "If I had a million dollars, I...".  Before I write my blog post, I need to give a quick shout out to the founders of Finish the Sentence Friday.

 

So, thank you to the lovely bloggers below.  Check out their pages and get linked up!

Janine's Confessions of Mommyaholic

Finding Ninee

Can I Get Another Bottle Of Whine...

Mommy, for Real

The Golden Spoons

 

 

Now on with the blogging.  So a couple weeks back, there was a super mega power ball millions lotto or something like that.  But the moral of the story is that there was a really big winning available.  Like tens of millions.  I was assisting with a move at work.  As you may or may not know, I work in affordable housing.  Many of our tenants started out homeless before finding homes with us.  During this move, a group of tenants were discussing what they would do with all of that money.  Some of their answers really surprised me.  Their first stop would be to the organizations that had helped them when they needed help, the churches, the shelters etc.  I was amazed by those answers and it made me glad that I do what I do.

 

Now to my greedy answers.....

 

How can I finish the sentence "If I had a million dollars, I..." after the above paragraph without starting with donating to charity.  But I would think instead of donating a lot of money to one charity, I would rather donate smaller amounts to people in need.  Like that single lady down the street with three kids who needs a new car.  Or the kids at the local school that need new coats.  That homeless guy on the off ramp.  I bet he could use a good meal and a dry pair of socks.  I think that is how I would rather give money back.

 

Then what to do with the rest of it.  I would pay off my own debt.  The Smooch and I don't have much just a student loan and a mortgage.  I think maybe a nice vacation for The Smooch and I would be next.  We would give some to our parents to ensure that they could really enjoy their retirement.  They have each given us so much and it would really be nice to pay them back in some way.

 

And that's probably about all, because who are we kidding, a million dollars isn't going very far.  After taxes, paying off debt, giving some to the rents and donating to charity, we wouldn't really have much left.  I remember when I was a kid, a million dollars seemed like so much money.  Now it really isn't much at all.  But let's be clear, if someone gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't turn it down.

Crap I Did This Year - 2013

Like all great ideas, this one is also stolen.  I read, off and on, a number of blogs.  I stumbled across ComfyTown Chronicles: TToT Don't Call It A YIR which then led me to Considering: Not Ten, but TWELVE Things of Thankful.  I liked their versions of the year in review a lot and decided to try it out.

So here is my Year in Review also known as Twelve Thing of Thankful which I have renamed as Crap I Did This Year.  I haven't been blogging a year yet.  Well, I started in 2011 then stopped and restarted in October 2013.  But here is a list of a few other things I did that maybe even you didn't know about.  I apologize that it seems a little late.  But better late than never.

January

In January I left my old job in commercial real estate to start a new adventure in affordable housing.  Everyday since has been an adventure.  Working for a non-profit is different than anything I have ever done before.  There are all the goods and bads of any other job but there is this additional layer where at the end of each day, we did good for someone else.  We put people in homes.

February

An outing with a friend takes us to an improv show.  I have taken improv classes in the past but this show changes my fate with improv.  After this show, I take an additional class.  That class leads me to an improv troupe and performances in front of actual people.  People who paid money to see me perform.  Pretty cool.

The Smooch and I have an Oscar Party.  We went all out.  We decorated the house and had swag bags for all of our guests.  We even dressed the dogs up.

Yes, I made an evening gown for our cement goose.
Yes, we have a cement goose, but it is The Smooch's and not mine. 
No way I would own that awful thing.

Best Dressed goes to....

March

I have been very luck up until this point but in March I lost a good friend.  This was the first funeral that I have gone to that was for a friend.  Not an old relative, not the grandmother of a friend, but my friend.  Someone that was brought to me randomly by fate.  I should maybe add here that she was 90 when she died.  But it still hurt me in my heart.  I met her when I worked in a nursing home right after college almost 10 years ago.  We became fast friends and spent many years playing Scrabble.  I miss her dearly.

April

The Smooch and I went to see Elton John in concert.  It was my second Elton John concert and The Smooch's 18th.  I don't think it was our last concert.

I discovered roller derby and attended my first bout.  The Smooch and I attended a bout of the Ohio Roller Girls.  I hate sports.  I have a short attention span and get distracted by cheerleaders, bands and time outs.  But I could not take my eyes of this sport.  I am in love.  I later attend a couple Wanna Be clinics where you get to practice your roller derby skills.  Being a novice, we learned things like how to fall and stop.  Why do I would need to learn to fall.  I know how to do that.  You read Tricknee right?  I fall down just fine.  But I needed to learn to fall without hurting myself.  The Smooch and I also have season tickets to the 2014 season and I can't wait for it to kick off in March!  Boom!!

I stopped pinning stuff on Pinterest and actually made something that I pinned.  Pretty awesome right?

May

As I stated in January, I was reintroduced to the wonderful world of improv.  In May, I had my first performance.  It was quite an experience.  The crowd was not huge, but full for the venue.  I was so nervous I could have died.  But I am glad that I did it.  I conquered a fear and love performing.  I actually have a show on Friday!

My Office Plant Died.  This was very traumatic for me.  The plant was thriving and doing well.  Then after an extended period away from work it died.  It was determined it died of lack of light as my office has no windows.  Afterwards, the office plant doctor took all the rest of my plants out of my custody and determined me an unfit mother.  She nursed them all back to health, except the one pictured below and gave them back to me.  Now I have to get a babysitter for my plants anytime I am out of the office for more than 3 days.

June

My parents and in-laws engage in a war for my love during my birthday.  In a surprise turn of events, my parents sent me a birthday card.  This may be the second or third card I have received from my mother EVER.  The card held one slightly wrinkled $1 bill.  This may be the largest and most expensive birthday gift I have received from my parents in years.

Not to be outdone, my In-Laws "upped the ante."  Not only did they send a card, they sent a wrinkled $5 bill.  I am hoping this tradition continues until I am getting $100 each birthday.

I spent all that money on lottery tickets and won NOTHING!!  Lesson learned: people can't buy my love, it just doesn't pay.

July

July was the month I became famous, for about 15 minutes.  While eating out at a local hot dog restaurant, me and my coworker we approached by a news reporter.  They were doing an article on hot dog eating for July 4th.  I was interviewed and then I was video tapped eating a hot dog.  Now when you Google my name, this article comes up in the top 10.  So it is my Facebook page, my LinkedIn page and then a video of me eating a hot dog.  Can't wait until I look for my next job and future employers find that little gem.

August

August is the month that I decide to start blogging again. This led me on an adventure.  I know realize that I know nothing about nor do I understand SEO, PageRanks, analytics etc.  I had no idea there was so much more to blogging.  As I stated in my post My Blogging Goals for 2014 are......, I am going to try to ignore all of that stuff and just blog about whatever moves me.  I am not trying to get a book deal or get the most pins on my recipe on pinterest.  I just want to ramble aimlessly.

August is also the month that I discovered the best pants in the world.  I totally love these pants and will wear nothing but them.  Check them out at Button Free, Zipper Free, Care Free.  Yes, I wear elastic waist band pants.  Don't judge me until your fat ass has been in these pants and you were like, oh yeah.

September

September marked the two year anniversary of The Smooch and myself.  It often times feels like it has been much longer.  This is also the month wear rumors really started flying that I may have killed him.  I did not kill him, he had only been kidnapped by his mother.  If I had killed him, no one would ever know.  Read more here...  The Smooch has left the building...

I also got to meet Alex Newell who plays Unique on Glee.  This was one of two nights this year that I was up past midnight.  The other being New Year's Eve.  I am always amazed by the confidence of drag queens.  That was a drag....

October

October was a month that brought even more improve into my life.  Columbus had it's annual improve festival and I did nothing but watch, practice, workshop and perform improv.  It was a crazy weekend.  I guess that's all I really did in October.  Slow month.

November

The Smooch and I hosted a Halloween party and in our usually fashion, it was late.  We had it the first weekend in November.  It is partly Halloween's fault since it was on a Thursday.  We had a great time at the party.  I dressed up as a Wrecking Ball and The Smooch dressed up as Miley Cyrus.  He was wearing clothes but not very many and it was an interesting sight.  There are no pictures because every picture taken immediately broke the camera.  This party gave me a Flashback to college and I realized I am getting old and may now need to be on a no drink limit.

December

In December, The Smooch and I went to New York to visit my In-Laws.  Trips at the In-Laws are always interesting.  Each time The Smooch and I visit New York we always try to spend at least on day in the city, New York City.  This visit we took a look at the 9-11 Memorial.  It was a very somber place.  The first time I had ever been to New York was many years after 9-11 happened so I never saw the towers in all their glory.  And it is really weird to stand in a place where these two towers used to be.  It's hard to imagine what that space must have been like with the towers.  We also walked down to Battery Park and I got to see the Statue of Liberty.  I had never been to NYC before I met The Smooch and I love that we try to see one part of the city each time we are in New York.  It is really fun to see all these sights with The Smooch.

 

My Blogging Goals for 2014 are......

So a while back I discovered and blog link up thing where they ask you to finish the sentence.  My first blog was My Favorite Christmas Tradition.  I enjoyed writing that blog and have decided to follow along to each new Finish the Sentence Friday over at Janine's Confessions of a Mommyaholic.  I don't know if I will join in each week but I will see which topics move me.

So this week's topic is My Blogging Goals for 2014 are.  While I don't think this will be a good read for my readers (sorry) I do think that it will be good for me to get some goals and commit them to paper.  I also think it might be good to let my readers know what my goals are for my blog so they understand why I do some of the things I do.

So I don't know if I really have goals for my blog.  I started the blog.... well, I am not really sure why I started this blog.  I guess part of me wanted to get some of my stories down on paper (screen).  My grandmother kept journals all of her life.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to read most of them until after she had passed.  The journals shared a part of her life that I had no idea even existed.  Experiences and feelings that she had.  I don't want future generations to find out who I am after I die.  I don't tend to be a very open person.  I think I started blogging so that I could share a part of myself.  So that friends and family could get to know be better.  I should be able to share my feelings and beliefs in person but for some reason, I don't.  It is so much easier to do it on the screen.  I feel a little bit like Doogie Howser, M.D. (anyone else remember this show?).  He ended each show by typing a journal on his computer.  I realize that it is a little different.  He wrote his feelings down just for himself and I foolishly share them with the world (or at least to the few people who read my blog.)

So goals....  My goals would probably be to write more.  I always worry about writing great material, or writing something that isn't too short.  I also feel like I have to add pictures but don't completely understand all the copyright laws so I try to take my own or draw my own.  Both end up being of poor quality.  (Trust me, I know).  I am trying to write posts that will gain me followers.  That's the funny thing about blogging.  I put something out into the world and have no idea if people are reading it or enjoying it.  Sometimes I feel like I am writing to myself.  But that is okay.  I guess my goals are to worry less about blogging.  Who cares if people are sitting on the edge of their seat following my every word.  I am going to start writing for me and just see where it goes.  Some of my future blog posts will be shorter.  I think that I would rather write more often and worry less about length and if there are pictures.  I will also not worry about making ever blog fall down laughing funny.  So I am sorry if that disappoints you but I just don't do enough stupid stuff anymore.  I will try harder but in the mean time, I will have to find something else to write about.

So that being said, I would also love to hear from you.  What do you think my goals should be?  Write more funny stuff, more serious stuff?  More about my present, more about my past?  Let me know.  Nothing makes a blogger happier than a comment, like or share!