I totally hosed the day on the not-swearing makeup when a turquoise car pulled out in front of me at like a 45-degree angle from her parking space completely without warning as I was toodling along Kimball Avenue at a brisk, but legal, 30 miles per hour. I had to swerve to within a foot of the car parked on the opposite side of the street to avoid her because she was headed out at this crazy angle, and I would have been nailed if oncoming traffic in the opposite lane had been fifty feet closer. Because I am a person who relishes a bout of righteous anger, I stopped at the red light just past where I swerved and yelled out the window, "What the FUCK is wrong with you!?" I mean, do we not look behind us before we pull out of a parking space? Are we not a society, with rules? Goddamned dumbass shithumping fuckwit!
Aaanyway. As I suspected, last night I got started weeding in the driveway and wound up spending 45 minutes out there digging around. Not what I meant to do, and not what I'm going to do tonight, but man...there are a lot of weeds out there. Still, the tulips and bleeding hearts are blooming and my planting from last year and the year before is starting to pay off...things are filling in a bit more each spring and it's starting to look a little more cohesive. All good things.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Week 15: The Seeds of Discontent
Listen, I'll be honest: I didn't write here for a week for two reasons. One, I was just lights-out exhausted all week, though I don't really know why. And two, to no one's surprise, I suck at not swearing. I blame my boss.
Early last week he asked me what my challenge for the week was. This conversation, when it happens, is usually started by his offering me something and then saying, "Wait, is it No Candy From Your Boss week?" And then we discuss what week it actually is. When I explained that it was no-swearing week, this sort of dismayed/bemused look crossed his face and he launched into an avuncular "why are you doing this to yourself?!" speech -- saying, you're a good person who happens to like Coke and swearing -- what's the problem? And while I certainly appreciate the compliment, I had to explain this whole project, both to him and myself. Which was weird. Really, the first rule of 52 Changes for me has been "don't talk about 52 Changes." I don't like introspection much, and even asking myself why I am doing this is more than I'm comfortable with. Still, I did think about it, and what it comes to is this: why not? I like myself. I would hang out with myself. But there are some things I haven't really tried for good reasons or bad, and this project a good excuse to do some of those things, or at least a good excuse to stop making excuses for just a week. It makes me focus on one thing about my own behavior that might be a positive addition or subtraction to make. And it's been fun so far, for the most part.
But this little chat made me think to myself, hey, self, what IS so wrong about swearing? Like my boss said, I don't do it when it's not appropriate, and let's face it, I can't really be expected to talk about my baseball team and not swear. So I was less inclined to discipline myself in this respect, especially after many drinks and many dorky boys to make fun of at Smartbar, and now, I'm three days behind on the week, which is why I refrain from comment on the !$(#%#@! Cubs until Tuesday.
So I have half a week running over into this week, but I am encouraged because I finally allowed myself to see some fruits of Week Two's continuing challenge to hit the gym and Week -- I've lost eight pounds, per my mom's evil little scale. That's pretty sweet. Up to this point I didn't want to step on a scale until I felt I had lost at least a little bit of weight for fear of getting discouraged. And, I looked up the results of my recent spate of blood tests from the company-sponsored "wellness exam" a little while back and everything, including the infamous triglyceride level, is well into the green zone. I don't know if my blood pressure has dropped any since then, but 120/80 isn't the worst. I'll get there, just like I'll get to where I want to be weightwise. And I feel good about it because I'm doing this in a way that doesn't make me miserable.
Okay, back pat time is over now. We've been having really pleasant weather here in Chicago, which is pretty unusual for April, but has been great for getting a jump on gardening. Snow on opening day at Wrigley is not uncommon, although it never sticks, and it's not safe to plant most things out until May at the very earliest. Saturday I was too tired from Friday's shenanigans to do much in the way of house or yardwork, so Sunday I spent the bulk of the day in the yard, weeding, replanting, standing and thinking, that sort of thing, while being Peter's assistant as he attached some lattice to the side of the house for roses to climb. It's been such a pleasure to get out and enjoy the outdoors, but while I'm out there enjoying I'm also seeing a to-do list. Basically, in garden season my housework load doubles; it's just that I happen to like a lot of the garden part, even when it's hard work.
That said, weeds are kind of the equivalent of mail clutter in the garden (which, I've not been quite as consistent with the mail clutter as I should be, either...sigh.) When they're there, it's all I see, but I get so overwhelmed that I put off dealing with them until I need like three hours to get through it all, when it would obviously be more efficient to deal with them a little at a time consistently. I spent quite a bit of time weeding yesterday, but there's so much more to be done that I'm making this Weed Clutter week -- I'll spend just 15 minutes a day pulling weeds, and maybe by the end of the week I'll be at a point where I can get down to the bigger tasks. Shouldn't be too hard -- the weather's nice this week, and it's staying light outside until much later in the day -- but I guarantee there will be one evening by flashlight at the very least.
Plus it's an excuse to talk about my yard. And I like to do that. I would totally hang out with me and talk about gardening.
Early last week he asked me what my challenge for the week was. This conversation, when it happens, is usually started by his offering me something and then saying, "Wait, is it No Candy From Your Boss week?" And then we discuss what week it actually is. When I explained that it was no-swearing week, this sort of dismayed/bemused look crossed his face and he launched into an avuncular "why are you doing this to yourself?!" speech -- saying, you're a good person who happens to like Coke and swearing -- what's the problem? And while I certainly appreciate the compliment, I had to explain this whole project, both to him and myself. Which was weird. Really, the first rule of 52 Changes for me has been "don't talk about 52 Changes." I don't like introspection much, and even asking myself why I am doing this is more than I'm comfortable with. Still, I did think about it, and what it comes to is this: why not? I like myself. I would hang out with myself. But there are some things I haven't really tried for good reasons or bad, and this project a good excuse to do some of those things, or at least a good excuse to stop making excuses for just a week. It makes me focus on one thing about my own behavior that might be a positive addition or subtraction to make. And it's been fun so far, for the most part.
But this little chat made me think to myself, hey, self, what IS so wrong about swearing? Like my boss said, I don't do it when it's not appropriate, and let's face it, I can't really be expected to talk about my baseball team and not swear. So I was less inclined to discipline myself in this respect, especially after many drinks and many dorky boys to make fun of at Smartbar, and now, I'm three days behind on the week, which is why I refrain from comment on the !$(#%#@! Cubs until Tuesday.
So I have half a week running over into this week, but I am encouraged because I finally allowed myself to see some fruits of Week Two's continuing challenge to hit the gym and Week -- I've lost eight pounds, per my mom's evil little scale. That's pretty sweet. Up to this point I didn't want to step on a scale until I felt I had lost at least a little bit of weight for fear of getting discouraged. And, I looked up the results of my recent spate of blood tests from the company-sponsored "wellness exam" a little while back and everything, including the infamous triglyceride level, is well into the green zone. I don't know if my blood pressure has dropped any since then, but 120/80 isn't the worst. I'll get there, just like I'll get to where I want to be weightwise. And I feel good about it because I'm doing this in a way that doesn't make me miserable.
Okay, back pat time is over now. We've been having really pleasant weather here in Chicago, which is pretty unusual for April, but has been great for getting a jump on gardening. Snow on opening day at Wrigley is not uncommon, although it never sticks, and it's not safe to plant most things out until May at the very earliest. Saturday I was too tired from Friday's shenanigans to do much in the way of house or yardwork, so Sunday I spent the bulk of the day in the yard, weeding, replanting, standing and thinking, that sort of thing, while being Peter's assistant as he attached some lattice to the side of the house for roses to climb. It's been such a pleasure to get out and enjoy the outdoors, but while I'm out there enjoying I'm also seeing a to-do list. Basically, in garden season my housework load doubles; it's just that I happen to like a lot of the garden part, even when it's hard work.
That said, weeds are kind of the equivalent of mail clutter in the garden (which, I've not been quite as consistent with the mail clutter as I should be, either...sigh.) When they're there, it's all I see, but I get so overwhelmed that I put off dealing with them until I need like three hours to get through it all, when it would obviously be more efficient to deal with them a little at a time consistently. I spent quite a bit of time weeding yesterday, but there's so much more to be done that I'm making this Weed Clutter week -- I'll spend just 15 minutes a day pulling weeds, and maybe by the end of the week I'll be at a point where I can get down to the bigger tasks. Shouldn't be too hard -- the weather's nice this week, and it's staying light outside until much later in the day -- but I guarantee there will be one evening by flashlight at the very least.
Plus it's an excuse to talk about my yard. And I like to do that. I would totally hang out with me and talk about gardening.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Week 14: #$%*(^*!
Turns out, I'm pretty good with a bedtime on school nights, for a week at least. As was the case with other challenges, it was sort of nice to have an excuse to behave the way I normally should. There was definitely some adjustment -- I sometimes felt tired when I didn't think I should, and vice versa -- but it's hard to say after having done it for only a week. It's not enough time for my system to even itself out, really.
And I have to admit to some chicanery. Saturday night Peter and I planned to get dinner and see a late movie -- specificially Clash of the Titans. (What? It's practically a lesson in Classics!) But while we were eating lad nar, Peter remembered that I had to be in bed by 11, especially since I had botched it the night before. But -- but -- I didn't WANNA go to bed. Peter and I get one night a week without the kids, and it seemed a waste to squander it on something trivial like sleep. Before anyone feels compelled to say it, yes, there are other things you can do in bed without the kids around, but I'm so sick of waking up in a pile of Scrabble tiles, I can't even tell you. So, we gamed the system -- we went back home, moved a futon to the front of the TV and watched a movie. A futon is, after all, a bed, and I didn't say I had to be in MY bed by 11. (I tried to convince Peter that I had to remain supine for the challenge requirements to be completely satisfied, but he wasn't willing to carry me up two flights of stairs, the slacker.)
What it boils down to is that at 34, I'm not ready to hang up the late night dancin' shoes just yet. An 11 o'clock bedtime on a Saturday IS the worst thing in the world. It's our primary non-kid-having time, and let's face it, lots of fun social stuff is happening after 11 pm. I guess I'm willing to sacrifice the routine once or twice a week for now -- there'll be time for an extra couple of hours of sleep when we're in the rest home. So, I'm going to try to keep going on this one during the week -- but a late evening once, maybe twice a week is kind of a treat, and I can usually sleep late the next day so there's no sleep deficit (although it does present the problem of getting back into a sleep routine, which was the whole point of this challenge, but anyway...) The upside to this challenge is that it was super-easy to make up the day I missed last night. I was out like a light.
I had a few ideas for Week 14, but my lack of planning kind of did me in this week and I don't know what I did or didn't do yesterday that was awesome and that I could do for a week. Hide eggs? Hang out with superkeen friends? Eat ham? Okay, ham-eating is awesome and I could do it for a week, but is that advisable? Hmm...maybe.
Wait, seriously, I could eat ham every day for a week. Lord knows we have lots of it leftover from Easter, and that would be much easier than my other plan, which is to give up swearing for a week. Anyone who has spoken to me in a less-than-formal situation or read anything that I've written knows that I tend to drop a lot of four-letter words. I think of them as salt and pepper in the dinner of life. Funny are funnier, anger is angrier, happy is happier with an f-word or a b-word in it. They're color when you need it, you know? Plus, I have kids. I probably let more slip with AJ now that he's older, but when he was younger I had lots of haughty discussions about language and how constant use of obscenities belies a lack not just of vocabulary, but imagination. (And then I'd meet friends at the bar and proceed to swear like a sailor.) I still am careful about swearing in front of Hannah, a.k.a. The Shame Mirror. The other day, while driving to school, I must have made some sort of irritated interjection because Hannah said, "When you are driving and someone lets you in, you say thank you, and when they don't, you say, 'DUDE!' Right? Right Mommy?" What she doesn't yet know is that when I say DUDE! I'm thinking...something very different. And it takes a lot of restraint to stop at "dude".
Naturally, yesterday I was swearing all up in the place when the kids weren't around, since I didn't have a no-swearing plan in place yet. Well, it's Monday and while I've thought all kinds of f's and b's and s's and s-c-s-m-fer's, I have neither spoken nor written one, and we'll see if I can make it for seven days straight. If you're smart, you'll bet against it.
And I have to admit to some chicanery. Saturday night Peter and I planned to get dinner and see a late movie -- specificially Clash of the Titans. (What? It's practically a lesson in Classics!) But while we were eating lad nar, Peter remembered that I had to be in bed by 11, especially since I had botched it the night before. But -- but -- I didn't WANNA go to bed. Peter and I get one night a week without the kids, and it seemed a waste to squander it on something trivial like sleep. Before anyone feels compelled to say it, yes, there are other things you can do in bed without the kids around, but I'm so sick of waking up in a pile of Scrabble tiles, I can't even tell you. So, we gamed the system -- we went back home, moved a futon to the front of the TV and watched a movie. A futon is, after all, a bed, and I didn't say I had to be in MY bed by 11. (I tried to convince Peter that I had to remain supine for the challenge requirements to be completely satisfied, but he wasn't willing to carry me up two flights of stairs, the slacker.)
What it boils down to is that at 34, I'm not ready to hang up the late night dancin' shoes just yet. An 11 o'clock bedtime on a Saturday IS the worst thing in the world. It's our primary non-kid-having time, and let's face it, lots of fun social stuff is happening after 11 pm. I guess I'm willing to sacrifice the routine once or twice a week for now -- there'll be time for an extra couple of hours of sleep when we're in the rest home. So, I'm going to try to keep going on this one during the week -- but a late evening once, maybe twice a week is kind of a treat, and I can usually sleep late the next day so there's no sleep deficit (although it does present the problem of getting back into a sleep routine, which was the whole point of this challenge, but anyway...) The upside to this challenge is that it was super-easy to make up the day I missed last night. I was out like a light.
I had a few ideas for Week 14, but my lack of planning kind of did me in this week and I don't know what I did or didn't do yesterday that was awesome and that I could do for a week. Hide eggs? Hang out with superkeen friends? Eat ham? Okay, ham-eating is awesome and I could do it for a week, but is that advisable? Hmm...maybe.
Wait, seriously, I could eat ham every day for a week. Lord knows we have lots of it leftover from Easter, and that would be much easier than my other plan, which is to give up swearing for a week. Anyone who has spoken to me in a less-than-formal situation or read anything that I've written knows that I tend to drop a lot of four-letter words. I think of them as salt and pepper in the dinner of life. Funny are funnier, anger is angrier, happy is happier with an f-word or a b-word in it. They're color when you need it, you know? Plus, I have kids. I probably let more slip with AJ now that he's older, but when he was younger I had lots of haughty discussions about language and how constant use of obscenities belies a lack not just of vocabulary, but imagination. (And then I'd meet friends at the bar and proceed to swear like a sailor.) I still am careful about swearing in front of Hannah, a.k.a. The Shame Mirror. The other day, while driving to school, I must have made some sort of irritated interjection because Hannah said, "When you are driving and someone lets you in, you say thank you, and when they don't, you say, 'DUDE!' Right? Right Mommy?" What she doesn't yet know is that when I say DUDE! I'm thinking...something very different. And it takes a lot of restraint to stop at "dude".
Naturally, yesterday I was swearing all up in the place when the kids weren't around, since I didn't have a no-swearing plan in place yet. Well, it's Monday and while I've thought all kinds of f's and b's and s's and s-c-s-m-fer's, I have neither spoken nor written one, and we'll see if I can make it for seven days straight. If you're smart, you'll bet against it.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Plumb tuckered
As Hannah now likes to say, LORDAMIGHTY. I am the tiredest of tired ladies in the known tired world, and for no good reason. I wound up staying home today due to a closed daycare center. At 10 am we took Hannah to a park district egg hunt. Pretty low key, not particularly early. Then we went home and I puttered around the yard and repotted half of my seedlings. Then, we drove through throngs of people who seem to have forgotten how to cross a street over the winter to pick up a couple of food-grade plastic barrels to make into rainbarrels (whoop whoop!) And that's it. Other than it being really gorgeously warm outside, nothing crazy strenuous or out of the ordinary.
B ut now it's a little after five and I am just zonked. I went to bed on time last night and woke up around 8, just like I'm supposed to do. I could have stayed up and watched the Thursday shows, but I didn't. I could have stayed up and picked up the house, but I didn't. I could have stayed up and taken the shower to end all showers but I didn't. And what do I have to show for it? A messy house, a full Tivo, and a tired Erica at 5 fucking 19. No makey sense. We're going to do a little mini-golfing and a little pizza-eating and hopefully that kicks some life back into me.
B ut now it's a little after five and I am just zonked. I went to bed on time last night and woke up around 8, just like I'm supposed to do. I could have stayed up and watched the Thursday shows, but I didn't. I could have stayed up and picked up the house, but I didn't. I could have stayed up and taken the shower to end all showers but I didn't. And what do I have to show for it? A messy house, a full Tivo, and a tired Erica at 5 fucking 19. No makey sense. We're going to do a little mini-golfing and a little pizza-eating and hopefully that kicks some life back into me.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Last night
My original plan was to post from bed last night using my phone, and laboriously type out all the things I could have done that evening instead of going to bed. It would probably have been possible from Peter's iPhone, but my little Samsung Mythic wasn't up to the challenge, sadly, and since Peter's not hitting the pillow at 11 with me, I just turned off the light and tried to sleep. "Tried" being the operative word. I was really sleepy at 10, but showering and brushing my teeth and idly flipping through catalogs was enough to keep me up until Peter came in about 11:30 -- and then he talked to me just enough to knock all the sleepiness out of me. So I lay there in bed while Peter slept, thinking of all the things I could have accomplished in that time, regretting not folding the clean laundry or running out to the store to pick up yogurt for Hannah's school party or waxing my moustache or making my lunch...yeah. By 1 am, I'd had enough tossing and turning and took a couple of Tylenol PM. So instead of waking up early to accomplish those things, I woke up at 7:30 and did what I could.
This is all to explain why I still have a moustache this morning. Hola, Senor Erica! I'll get it ripped out along with the Bert-brows later today, after Hannah's and my haircuts. By 8 pm, I might even look passably female. And I won't have as many food crumbs getting caught on my upper lip, which is always nice.
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