Weekday Fun

Here's what's awesome right now.

1.  Matt and I are rocking the socks off of parenthood so far, if I do say so myself.  We've always made a great team, and the last few days have even been fun.  Shoot, I slept for 9 hours last night (not all at once, but still), and little CSF is a pretty chill baby.  It's early yet, we know, but our incredible abilities to nap and our time management skillz are really coming in handy right now.

2.  The Elvis Presley Pandora station.  Charlie loves it.  

3.  Dog brothers.

4.  Mad Men.  We finally saw the season premiere (watched it in about 3 different installments), and it did not disappoint.  What did you think?

5.  Birthdays!  Yesterday was 31 for me, and while there wasn't much partying down, it was a nice day full of good food and snuggles and presents and love.  And about 30 minutes after I realized that I'd forgotten to go to Back in the Day Bakery to pick up some cupcakes for myself, a wonderful friend stopped by with 4 cupcakes and a card!  Shoot yeah!

Birthday present from super husband!

6.  The cutest baby this side of the Mississippi.

Hope you're doing well and getting lots of sleep!  

Video Therapy

The days leading up to Christmas break can be a little wild, and sometimes I begin to wonder about the direction my life has taken, you know, when I utter sentences like, "Stop hitting him with that Slim Jim" or when I have to insist that there was nothing racial in my request that a student put away his box of Chicken in a Biscuit* crackers. This break is going to be much-deserved, methinks.

And since my brain has pretty much been fried, and I've spent much of the last few weeks being pissed off or frustrated (But not this week. This week is going swimmingly. Don't mess with me, universe!), I've resorted to a few little comfort tactics to keep myself sane. One of these tactics involves food (I know you're really surprised about that), but since I saw that I'd put on five pounds last month**, I'm working to scale that strategy back.

One of my other favorite tactics is great because it makes me smile without taking up too much time. I like to watch favorite scenes from movies and tv shows or music videos. They provide a little pick-me-up (since margaritas are out for the time being) and lighten my mood. And I wanted to share some of these scenes with you. So, without further ado, here they are.

1. Love Actually cute guy with signs. This is how Matt and I ended up getting together. Except not. But for now, let's just pretend. (And while you're at it, go watch Hugh Grant dancing, too.)



2. Buddy the Elf. Pretty much all of Elf is my favorite, but I'm only putting this one because I love the song so much.



3. The final scene from Dirty Dancing. I particularly enjoy the part where Johnny squints his eyes and mouths the words "And I owe it all to you" to Baby.  I also really love when he jumps off the stage in the most manly of ways.

4. C-Lo Green's "Fuck You." Why is it that I'm so unhip that I didn't know about this song until Tanya put it on a car CD that I demanded she burn for me? And why did it take me listening to the song approximately 30 times before I realized what he was saying? Grandma, you might even like this one. It's awfully catchy.



5. The final scene from Slumdog Millionaire. One of my students asked me the other day if I was going to name the baby Jamal, and I actually considered it, you know, with the hope that our spawn would be as sweet and delightful as Jamal from the movie.

6. Cool Hand Luke eats 50 eggs. This is kind of gross, but mostly just awesome.

7.  Wet Hot American Summer's big secret pizza party.  Always made me want to be a camp counselor and wear cutoff jean shorts.




8.  Don Draper says "What?"  So much handsome I can hardly stand it.



9. Run Forrest, Run.  Love that kid's face.



10. All things Coach Taylor.  I want to see him in a handsome-off with Don Draper.



11. Top Gun. I almost put the volleyball scene here, but this one's better. That's right. I am dangerous.



Those are just a few of my favorites.  What am I missing?



*Those crackers are so disgusting and so delicious at the same time. I should have confiscated them!


**Upon reflection, I've realized that I really did spend the entire month being cocky and gluttonous, and it turns out that it wasn't consequence-free. Who knew? PLUS, I was wearing shoes instead of flip-flops, and when I went home and weighed them on my food scale, they weighed over a pound! So I only gained 4 lbs. Plus, I'm sure the baby has gained like three pounds in the last month, so I only gained one pound. Plus, I'm pretty sure it was a full moon and there was more of a gravitational pull, so that would account for another 2. So, really, I lost a pound. Right? Right? It's amazing that I was able to eat so much last month and still lose a pound.

In Control.

So, are you ready to see the coolest picture that I've seen in a long, long time?

Yeah, that's Grandpa B, circa 1963, being an air traffic controller in Chicago.  Look at it again.  There's so much awesome in it.

It's so very Don Draper, but not in a sleazy, philandering kind of way.  And I just love dapper without skeezy.

And I love Grandpa B.

What's your favorite part of this picture?

A Boring Account of My Day, and Potential Last Words

This week has been tough. And not even tough because anything bad happened or because of illness or misfortune. It's just been tough because I'm a spoiled little baby, and after having 17 days off of work, I found it very hard to transition back into real life--which includes getting up in the morning, wearing pants that don't have an elastic waist, and actually having real responsibilities again, both at home and at school. What! You mean my entire life can't be devoted to watching Mad Men and making waffle cones?! That's rubbish!

So from Monday through Wednesday I was a complete worthless blob. I would go to school and try to muster up energy to be good while there, and then I'd come home and take a coma nap. The coma naps were getting progressively longer, and by the time I woke up from Wednesday's 4-hour one, I knew I had to make a change. But then I didn't want to, and I instead talked to Matt and ate burgers (from the new grill) and watched tv and laughed and tried my hardest to ignore the messy house and the fact that I would have to get up again in the morning. I hate getting up in the morning. I prefer to exit slumber in the early afternoon. (True fact. If I had my druthers, I'd stay up until 4 a.m. and sleep until noon every day.)

So yesterday was my day to be active. And, boy, was I! I went shopping and bought these, the perfect trouser pants from Gap that I'd had my eye on since September. (Shoot yeah, 50% off clearance prices!)

 and here I am wearing them

And I got this shirt, which is kind of like a fancy robe.

I also went to the grocery store and accidentally broke the bag and dropped my loaf of sourdough French bread in the middle of the parking lot. And I ate it anyway. And it was delicious.

And I took down Christmas. That took what felt like eight days, except that it was really like two or three hours. I think Christmas decorations are kind of like having family visit--you're so happy to put them out, and then you're just as happy to put them away.

While listening to to a few podcasts.

And I cleaned. And vacuumed (three times). And I ellipted. And I took a shower. And I did laundry.

And then the dryer went kaput. And I was mad. So I made Matt put on an episode of Mad Men, thinking that the dashing Don Draper would help me to forget about the inconvenient death of the dryer, but then I fell asleep during the episode.

This morning I found a guy on Craigslist who says that he has 30 years of experience fixing dryers and that he'll fix it for $40 plus the cost of parts. Hopefully that's not code for "30 years of experience murdering silly women," because I called him and he's coming to the house soon. Anyway, if I get murdered, you'll know it was "George" the "dryer repairman."*

*Don't worry, the dryer is out in the shed, so I don't even have to let him into the house.**

**Also, I'm going to hide a cast-iron skillet in my jacket, just in case. That's my weapon of choice to use against potential murderers.

Hola, 2011.

New Year's is nice, but I kind of don't care about it.

Since I have been either in school or teaching school since I was five (except for those two years after college when I just waited tables and made bad decisions), I measure my years by school years instead of calendar years.  So really New Year's is just kind of depressing to me because it means that I have to go back to work soon, and gone will be the days of lounging around in my pajamas, staying up until 4:00 a.m. talking to Matt and drinking wine, and then sleeping in until noon just because I can.

And I don't really do resolutions, either (I talked about it some last year, but really it's just because I'm lazy and don't care).  And since it's considered poor form to make your New Year's resolution "to get knocked up," well, I guess I'm just going to say that I don't have one.

But I do think Mitch wants a kid sister.  (Yeah, yeah, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, too.) (Oh, and we're not getting a goat!  Not that kind of kid!)

This is the part where I post 7 of the 121 pictures I took of him snuggling with Iris and Opal on the couch tonight while they watched Toy Story 3.

For serious!

In other news, tomorrow is my last day of vacation, and I kind of want to lie on the ground and kick and scream like a small child.  But we've got oodles of fun fast approaching, so there's no point in being a baby.

Also, my car won't start.  (Booooo!)

Also, it's raining, which means that I won't be vacuuming the floor for at least nine days.

I'm out of things to say right now.  Except that I'm ashamed of myself for still liking (really liking) Don Draper after he does so many skeevy things.

Oh man, looks like 2011 is off to a rocky start.

How about you?  Any resolutions?  Any dogs on couches with cute girls?

Imitating Mad Men

1. We really need to start watching Mad Men.
2. I want to be friends with these women.
3. They're right; work meetings wouldn't be so bad if there were margaritas.