things that must go!

Inspired by Radio from Hell, this is my little list of things that must go.

1. Adam Carolla - The alternative radio station here in Phx doesn't have their own morning show. They broadcast the lovely Adam Carolla. I don't listen to his show, but sometimes when I get in the car in the morning the radio is already on the station and I am accosted by his assinine crap. His show goes a little something like this: "Penis, Huh Huh Huh. Boobs, Huh Huh Huh. Cheap bastards, Huh Huh Huh." One time he seriously said, "What if I put my 'dork' through the mailslot and you could perform oral." Geeze I miss Kerry, Bill and Gina. I want some good clean "Boners in the News." I am dying to hear Bill call someone and Ass-hat!

2. The 20 or more checkstands at most large stores - You don't use them. Why hog up the retail space with them. You could at least use the space to display more tabloids, so I have more headlines to read while I wait 5 hours in line.

3. Women in the locker room who strut around in their underwear or less - If you have a hot body, great, but do you have to rub it in all of our stretchmarked and pudgy faces. If you are trying to be sexy, do it someplace else, I am not interested and I doubt anyone is going to slip you their phone number. If you are extremely overweight, well, really do I have to explain. I cover up, can't you too.

P.S. I really am not this negative all of the time. I am just a lot more interesting and funny when I am irritated. If you want to read about the cute and cheery things in my life , read my other blog.

shaving my head may be the best solution

Finding a new hair stylist is probably more painful than having someone insert tiny needles into your eyeballs one at a time.

I loved my last stylist!!!! I never had to decide what I wanted done with my hair or try and explain it to her. She was so good I could just trust her to do something wonderful. You never truly appreciate how good you had it until all is ripped away from you and you hit rock bottom!

Some of you may know about my last little stylist disaster. I paid $50 for just a haircut that was nothing like what I asked for. That is nothing compared to my experience tonight.

I got good vibes when I rushed into Salon de Chevreux. Nice decor, stylist had cute outfit and hair. I showed her some pictures and explained what I wanted. We seemed to be on the same page. Keep the blonde. Redo the chunky 2nd color I have underneath with a reddish brown.

This is the pic I brought. She asked me if that was the color I wanted and I swear I said, "No."

She mixed up the color and started puting on the dark color. It seemed to be in the right places. I was feeling pretty good.

Then she started with the bleach. She started at the roots. I thought, "Of course, it has been like 3 or 4 months since my last color, my roots need lightened." Then we got to talking. When I looked up again the top half of my head was completely saturated with bleach. At this point I threwup a little in my mouth. It was too late to explain to her I just wanted it weaved in.

I didn't know what to do. The panic set in. I struggled not to let the terror show in my face and kept praying that she really did know what she was doing and that it would all turn out in the end.

But alas, it was not to be so. I now have bleach blonde hair with purple chunks.

One side is purple and the other blonde. Nice!





Yes that is dye on the side of my face and not skin cancer. I wonder how long that will take to wash off.



I swear the hair in the picture I brought is quite a bit longer than this. Super short hair accentuates my long horse head.

I figure at this point I have 3 options.

1. Shave my head and buy a wig
2. Let my hair grow long, limp and mousey
3. Fly to Utah every other month and get my hair done in Logan
   

Narrow Minded When it Comes to Narrowmindedness

I went to Super Saturday last Saturday. It is one of those "get together at the church and do a bunch of lame crafts all day" things. I say lame mostly because the final product I produce is lame. Everyone else seems to be able to go home with a not so lame version.

Anyway, I had a relatively good time. Met some new people that don't bug me quite as much as the last ones I attempted to hang out with. However, I was irritated almost to the point of anger by part of the conversation and I have been trying to figure out why I am such a jerk.

The subject of books came up. One girl in the group proudly declared she always read books by LDS authors. I heard the words come out of her mouth and I had to gag back the vomit! LDS does not equal quality! I don't know why it angers me so much when people think LDS artists are great. I have real issues with people using their religion to sell mediocrity. Ewww, and the Work and the Glory! It is fiction my friends. Please don't bear your testimony about it!

The conversation went on about reading books with bad images in them and how they don't like those images in their heads, blah blah blah. I think the girl next to me must have caught the disgusted "you are such morons" look on my face because she started talking to me about books like Ethan Frome and Secret Life of Bees.

Now after a few days I am bothered, not by the fact that people waste their time reading garbage, but by the fact that it irritates me. Why should I care that someone chooses to read trite meaningless drivel? Or that they are so caught up in being offended they completely miss the overall beauty of a story? I know that part of the reason I am offended is because they consider what I value to be trashy and inappropriate. But honestly, I think I am a judgmental bastard and I should probably do something about it.

A little in love with Arnel Pineda

I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but here goes. I like Journey. Hey, I am from Southern Idaho. I have a soft spot for power ballads.

Apparently they were in town just recently. One of the spinning instructors at the gym went to the concert. She showed some of the concert in class the other day. (The spin studio has giant screens and they play videos to take our mind off the pain.)

Oh my goodness, have you seen their new lead singer? I didn't even realize it wasn't the original singer until I looked at the screen and some young Asian kid was singing. Steve Perry never looked this good.

Apparently the band found this Filipino kid on YouTube and hired him. Check it out. It is pretty amazing how much he sounds like Steve Perry.

Wow, doesn't that just take you back to high school dances. Okay, for some of you it may have been elementary school.

Mariachi Chicken

One of our many bad habits is going out to eat. You know you go out too much when you have lived in a city for 2 months and you are already sick of all the restaurants.

The main reason we go out to eat is my laziness. It is time for dinner, I don't want to cook and we have already eaten all of the Mac & Cheese. So, I went to Costco looking for some frozen throw in the oven food. The majority of what I found was outrageously high in fat and salt with next to no nutritional value. At least Mac & Cheese is fortified.

I shopped around and found organic spinach lasagna. Cool, something nutritious! I brought it home popped in the oven and an hour later could barely gag it down. I still have the other tray of it in the freezer. I wonder if the dogs would eat it? Probably not.

So my next thought was, "Why can't I just freeze my own frozen dinners?" I found a really great cookbook and got to work. The idea is to cook 3 or 4 times what you would normally cook, eat one and freeze the rest. Or you can get together with friends and cook together or swap food. I don't have any friends so the later is out.

This is what I made today.

First I had to bludgeon the chicken flat. You are supposed to use a rolling pin for this, but mine is still in a box and buried in the garage. I used a Nalgene bottle. It was amazingly satisfying to pound the hell out of a chicken breast

Then you put this colorful mix of peppers, olives and green onions in the center of the flattened chicken.

Next, roll it up. Put it in a pan and freeze them.

Once these bad boys are frozen then you can put them in a ziplock bag.

You also make a sauce out of cream cheese and salsa, which you freeze in a separate ziplock bag.

When you want to make it, you just pull out the chicken and sauce, put it in a pan, thaw, bake for one hour and Wahoo! you have dinner.

Sorry to bore you with all of the details. I guess I am just really impressed with myself.

In Search of my Waistline

Hey there it is! Wait, no that is just the fold between rolls.

This is my window of opportunity to get my body somewhat back to something resembling normal before I put another one in the oven. I say somewhat because I know this weird, wrinkly, squishy skin around my belly button will never go a way without surgical help.

Anyway, I have been going to the gym lately hoping someday I will see some results. Weight loss has been minimal, but I do feel a little less like my jeans are about to bisect me at the belly button. Truly my real motivation for going to the gym everyday is 2 hours of daycare for the kiddos.

My torture of choice is spinning class. If I don’t feel like I truly may keel over and die during my workout, in my mind it was a waste of time. I am kind of intense that way I guess. Today I did a 2 hour charity drive class. It kicked my ass, but that’s the way I like it. On my cool new heart rate monitor it said I burned 1123 calories. BK Quad Stacker here I come. (just kidding, I am sure I would yack!)

So,

Goodbye B. I.F. (for those of you who are unfamiliar, Butt In Front)

Goodbye Muffin Top.

Goodbye Back Bacon

See you again after the next bundle of joy arrives.

My Before and Afters

Before I go to the gym I feel like:

After I go to the gym I feel like:

P.S. Please don’t anyone get your under attire in a bunch. I am not even thinking about having another kid for at least another year

$4 Joke

I sent the hubby to the QT the other day to get my daily fix and this is what he came home with.



The 52 oz Trucker Mug.

He feels it was well worth the $4 because it makes him chuckle every time he sees me with it.

Yes, I do use it although my face flushes with embarrassment as I stand at the fountain for 5 minutes while it fills up. But, the way I see it, I am saving the environment one unused plastic cup at a time. It is kind of like taking your own bag to the grocery store right? My bag just happens to be more like an army duffel bag than a tote bag. I am just doing my part man.

Go Green!

And We Wonder Why Americans are Fat

Went to BK with the fam today. On the back of the little paper they put on the tray is the nutrition information. Ewww! This bad boy (quad stacker) has not 20 g of fat, not 30, no not even 50. 70 grams of FAT!!!!! 1010 calories!!!!! The Steakhouse burger has 59 g of fat and is 950 calories. Add a large fry and coke with that and I think you have your entire day's caloric intake.

Think your safe with a salad. Oh no, the light Italian dressing has 11 grams of fat and 120 calories. If you got the grilled chicken salad with light dressing you would consume 420 calories and 22 grams of fat.

A Day at the Zoo is Always Educational

We went to the Phoenix Zoo yesterday for our fun family adventure on John's day off. All I can say is it must be mating season.

My 3 year old can now imitate the sound of mating tortoises and what I am pretty sure is a tiger in heat. I had to get pretty creative answering questions like, "Why is that duck on top of the other duck?" and "What are those antelope doing?"

The tortoises made the biggest scene as they were the loudest and along a busy walkway. Far more interesting than the exhibitionist tortioses was the way people reacted. Some averted their gaze and tried to walk on by like they didn't notice the 2 gigantic tortoises doing the nasty. Others tried to redirect their children's attention while they snickered under their breath. There were even a few who showed their adult attitudes by standing and waching; all the while, giving condescending glances to those of us who were snickering. I giggled and snuck a picture. I am not sure what that says about me. I guess I am not very mature. At least I have a sense of humor.

Finally the zookeepers intervened. I am not sure how they got Yertyl and his sexy diva to move, but we saw them latter in a large, out of the way, gazelle habitat. They were still at it. Talk about stamina.

44 oz. to Freedom

I am now up to 44+ oz. of Diet a day. I know I have a problem, but at this point I am not willing to give it up. I have tried other forms of stress relief, but alas, none were as effective as chilling with a fountain Diet Coke, just a touch of vanilla syrup over crushed ice. It seriously doesn’t get much better than that!

Primal Screaming - painful.

Punching the wall - again painful.

Exercise - tiring.

Meditation - not effective with two kids yelling at you in the background

Food - fattening (Heavens to Betsy I don’t need any more of that!)

Breaking things – costly.

Diet Coke – Extremely satisfying and low calorie.

So what if it may or may not lead to dementia, cancer, heart problems . . . I’ll deal with that later. For now Diet Coke is my drug of choice.

Play Group

I took the kids to play group today. Since this is my first crack at being a stay at home mom, this was a new experience for me. I stand by my earlier preconception that I am not this kind of stay at home mom. I am not really sure play group is for me. I am not sure what I will have in common with these women . . . girls.

First of all, I think I was the oldest mom there. I am only 31. I was 27 when I had my first and I don't consider that a late start. I don't mean to offend anyone who chose to start having kids at 19. If that was your bliss and you are happy with your life, kudos to you. I am just saying it is not for me.

Second, my children are a little over 2 years apart. I think it was a little close and I am pretty sure it has contributed to my current lean toward insanity. Most of these girls' kids were less than 2 years apart. Good grief. I understand oops babies, but these people chose this?

Third, not one of them weighed over 120 lbs. I have nothing against skinny people. I wish I was one. I do have issues with extremely skinny pregnant girls complaining about how much weight they have gained. "You now weigh 105! Good heavens you are disgustingly obese! It will be almost impossible to get those 15 lbs off after you have the baby." Don't talk to me until you gain 60 lbs, stick girl.

Now, I know in the weeks that follow I will more than likely become friends with these girls and will want to take back everything I just wrote, but for now I am just going to revel in my tirade.

I am what I am

Maybe it is just the mood I am in or the time in my life, but I feel the need to be honest about things and rant a little. Everywhere else I have been trying to be positive so I don't look like the crazy person I have become. I am tired of editing myself.

My little list of complaints:

- It is hot
- I hate moving (I have moved 2 times in the past 4 months and will be moving again shortly)
- I don't know anyone. I find myself trying to strike up meaningful conversations with strangers at the grocery store. I don't want to be that crazy and annoying!
- The water here tastes and smells like mud.
- Crickets are nasty!!!
- I hate it when my husband asks me if I am okay with that concerned look on his face. No I am not and yes it is his fault for moving me to this hell hole.


Good things about living in AZ:

+ Only 4 hours from Disney Land. We are saving our pennies for year passes.
+ Houses are really cheap.
+ QT gas stations (I just wish they had a drive-thru)
+ No snow!
+ In-N-Out Burger (not helping with the weight issue)
+ Trader Joe's (Now I can be a trendy "go organic" girl)