Saturday, June 20, 2009

My husband thinks I'm attractive...

I don't think I said that quite right.

My husband thinks I'm totally hot and sexy. I know that sounds... well, I'm not sure how it sounds. But I thought it was worth writing about.

We've been married for almost 10 years. And I'm enough older than he is, that it matters. Not a few months, or even a few years. Thankfully, not a decade, but still. Enough that it matters. And age matters more to women than men anyway.

For a man, getting older means being wiser, more experienced, distinguished. In a culture that surrounds women with the idea that the most important thing is how we look, and more specifically, that we always look young, age tends to be hard. Women spend a lot of time and money on appearance. Even for those, like me, that don't get sucked into all of that, I still think about it. I still put a little effort into putting on make-up once in a while, dressing well once in a while, trying to stay thin.

But even still, I can't think of a better compliment to a woman than to be considered incredibly hot by the same person for 10 years or more. It's easy to be attractive to strangers. I clean up pretty well, I can turn on the charm, I can flirt with the best of them. But to be continually attractive to the guy that sees me first thing in the morning, when I'm being bitchy, when I haven't showered in days, when I'm sitting on the toilet... that's incredible.

I'm incredibly lucky. And sexy. ;-)

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Memorial Day Weekend

Over the Memorial Day weekend I went to Phoenix. I took an extra day off of work so I could be there four days with the intent of doing a "Clean House" intervention for a friend. I had stayed one night at her house in April when I flew down to repossess my nephew's car. I told her then I would be coming back to help her. Her house was a disaster.

I need to give a little background on this friend. I met her in the mid 90's (I'm not exactly sure what year) when she was hired into the company I worked for. We worked closely for at least a year before I got another job and moved on. She moved to Phoenix soon after to accept a job offer there. We would take turns visiting back and forth between Phoenix and here in the years since then.

She is the type of person that would give you the shirt off of her back if you had a need and she had nothing else. It is her nature to help anyone who needs help, even if it means she goes without. This tendency has hurt her more often than not, as she attracts the kind of people that will take advantage of her, and leave nothing in return.

This was my opportunity to do something for her. I arrived on a late Friday flight, and she picked me up from the airport. She had waited to eat until I arrived, in case I hadn't eaten, even though it was already 9pm, so we stopped to eat before going to her house. When we finally got to her house, we started a load of laundry.

This is why she needed the intervention: half of her formal living room was heaped with dirty laundry, the other half was heaped with Christmas stuff. She didn't use her formal living room, as her home has a family room, and therefore there was basically just a pathway from the garage door through the room. The rest of her house looked very similar.

She gave me her bedroom to stay in, while she slept on the couch during my stay. There was no space in her room for me to set my suitcase down on the floor, so first thing (6 am) Saturday morning I started on that room. I woke her at 8 am to start cleaning out her shoes. She had well over a hundred, and many I knew she couldn't be still wearing, as she buys the same shoe in every color they release. There were plenty that were various shades of the same color.

I woke her adult son who is living with her at 9 am to start on the garage. I had decided to install shelving in her garage to house all of the Christmas stuff, but when I arrived I noticed a row of boxes along that wall stacked half-way to the ceiling. I tasked him to go through those and determine what was in them. Amazingly he found a 386 cpu tower that was almost waist tall, and the matching monitor, complete with the five separate inputs for RGB (and I'm not sure what the other 2 are). Along with that dinosaur were boxes and boxes of miscellaneous paper (mail, photos, cards, tax documents, notes, receipts, etc.).

By the end of the first day, we had purchased shelving to hang on the garage walls which her son installed, done approximately 12 loads of laundry, gotten her bedroom completely cleaned out and the spare bedroom half done, purchased shoe racks for her closet, put everything that was still in her closet in a goodwill bag, since she obviously wasn't wearing it or it wouldn't be clean!

On the second day we had purchased 4 bookshelves, 4 cd towers, and a ton of bins to store all the many things that were piled on the floor everywhere. She had more than enough books in the house to fill two of the bookshelves, and then boxes of books in the garage.

By the third day, we had made a large enough dent in the laundry to be able to sort the remainder into loads, the Christmas stuff was fully contained (gathered from every conceivable hiding place all over the house) and stored on the garage shelving, her hobbies and unfinished projects had been sorted into bins and put into appropriate spaces, and the 2-car garage was full of either recyclable trash or garage sale items. We had made a sizable dent, but I was beginning to worry that we wouldn't finish by the end of the fourth day. We still had all of her beadwork (she designs jewelry), and her office to get to.

On my final day, I sorted through boxes of paper, cleaned out closets, finished the miscellaneous unfinished projects, and did laundry. I never did get to the office or the beads, but I did set her up with instructions on how to continue! We didn't make it to goodwill, but she promised to take everything once she'd held her garage sale.

All in all, it was a very productive weekend. The best thing about the weekend is that I came home with a renewed desire to clear my own space of clutter. It is going much more slowly, but I'm doing it. Just cleaning off the bar in the kitchen has given me a tremendous sense of peace! I'm determined to have a space for everything or it is going out. In July I'll have my own garage sale and goodwill run!

All throughout the weekend, all I could think about was Peter Walsh. If you don't know who he is, he does this kind of thing for a living. Going into disastrously cluttered homes and throwing out, selling, sorting, and organizing everything into usable living space. After four straight days, all I could think was HOW DOES HE DO IT?? You have to have a real love of organizing, I think, to do this every day, for people who want to have a clean space but are unwilling to part with anything! I have to hand it to him!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Workout Update

This is one of the updates that I promised in my recent post. Primarily because my trainer read the initial post, and took issue with the negative tone! Every time he comes he reminds me that I need to update everyone and be more positive!

So, I am still working out. I am definitely not working out as much as he would like, as I am supposed to be exercising between visits, independent of his supervision. However, I know I am not good at that. I promised my son that I would do some serious bike riding with him this summer, and I will keep my word. I have been waiting for him to get big enough and confident enough on his bicycle that we could ride a good distance. Now, however, he is way beyond me in ability! At 6, he's riding 10 miles each way to and from school a couple times a week. I doubt that I could do that distance in my current sorry state!!

I will be picking that up again, however. That is something I truly enjoyed doing, and something I miss. I loved riding my bike around town on the weekends. I look forward to being able to do that again with him. It will require me to scale back on weekend planning, which will also be good for me. There are plenty of things I want to do with him that will require planning, and time.

That said, I am currently working out with my trainer about 2 times per week for an hour. We have been doing that since the beginning of March, and I do notice a difference. I have not lost the belly pouch that was my goal from the beginning, but I am stronger, and feel better, than I have in quite a long time. I can see the improvement in just how much and how long I can do the tasks he gives me to do. Even though he works me until I feel like I'm going to drop, and can't lift an arm or leg a single more time, I know I lifted/pushed/worked many more reps with much more weight than would ever have been possible when I started.

I'm still slightly sore after every work out, which is something I take to be a good sign. It feels like I'm working hard if I'm sore. It feels like I'm pushing myself. I think that's good. I like pushing myself. I've gotten complacent in the past few years, and pushing is good. In whatever form it comes.

Ultimately, I've improved. My trainer swears he can tell a difference in the shape of my arms and legs. I can't say that I agree, because the only area that I've ever given any attention to is my belly, and that isn't changing much. However, I choose to believe him because I feel strong. That has to come from somewhere, right?

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Disorganization...

I admit that I am not the most organized person I know. I try, and my failings frustrate me severely, but I wing it as often as not. I especially hate it when I am not well enough organized in my business to know exactly where I stand at all times. Friday, I beat myself up for 3 hours because I missed an opportunity to make money and help out a mother in need of a day off, simply because I had not written down in the RIGHT place that one of my kids was out on vacation. Grrrr....

Last night I went with a friend to the grand opening of a local bar/lounge. Apparently, they were holding a karaoke contest yesterday evening, and she wanted to sing. It was a good idea, as she won first place!

However, the disorganization of the staff was driving me crazy. The owner apparently had not planned for much of a crowd because he had only 2 servers working and 3 bartenders. The two servers were serving well over 100 people all night, while the owner looked on doing nothing. I could see that no one at the tables were getting any kind of service, and many ended up going to the bar themselves to get their own drinks because the service was useless.

As I watched, I was getting more and more frustrated. Not because I was waiting, because I wasn't actually ordering anything, so it didn't affect me directly, but because it was OPENING NIGHT! How do you expect to keep your business going in a tough economy if you can't make a good impression on your first day!! I'd be amazed if even a fraction of the customers that were there last night go back for another try. It is likely that most of those would tell their friends and family about the experience and influence that many more people NOT to try it.

Yet the owner seemed largely unconcerned about the chaos that was occurring. At one point I approached him and suggested that he needed more servers. Had I been a little braver, I would have told him to give me a shirt, and I would help! His response was lost in the noise of the band and an accent I couldn't understand. However, what I could catch of his answer was pretty close to a shrug-off.

I am always interested in the rise and fall of businesses. What makes one work when another very similar venture fails miserably? How do some restaurants and bars hang on for decades when they seem to have only a slight stream of customers, where others that seem so popular and packed on the weekends, crash and burn in a short period of time?

This bar is this man's second attempt at this same location. It is interesting that he didn't learn anything from his previous experience here. I guess time will tell.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Blogging...

I apparently needed a break. For the last month or so I have done absolutely nothing. I have been holding still for a while. Well, that's not entirely true. I have been doing nothing productive.

I haven't written here in quite a while, and then only sporadically. I find that I miss it a lot. I can see a difference in my behavior when I write here consistently. It's as if by writing out even the most mundane things I am thinking about, I am freed from stewing on them, and can be a little more lighthearted. Writing about the something that really bothers me allows me to let it go and move on.

I love that you read and respond to my rambling. I apologize for the sometimes worthless subject material!

All in all, I am more relaxed and organized in my mind when I am consistent here. I find that intriguing and disturbing!

My moratorium has not been for lack of subject material. There have been plenty of times I've wanted to write. I want to write about my weekend in Phoenix. I want to update on previous posts (workout, raffle). I want to tell you about spending a day with my son at his school, and my monthly menu. (OK. I'm using you as a reminder. I admit it.)

Other things I've neglected include summer studying for my thesis project, reading the blogs I love to keep up with, my crazy grocery pricing study and budget, my finances! ugh, and my business paperwork.

Instead of all of those things that need to be done, I've been reading for no reason other than my personal pleasure. Granted, I have three books in process and none of them are particularly pleasurable, but still. I'm reading them just because. I have been playing mafia wars on facebook. Is that ever a mindless time suck! I almost hate to admit to it. But, every moment can't be productive, right? Right? Ok, don't answer that!

I have to admit that I need these little mind breaks. I think the end of the school semester triggered this one. The last couple weeks of school were spent in frantic writing to complete the semester's assignments, and the next couple of weeks have been a super long exhale!

Interestingly enough, I've been more present with my daycare kids of late, which is good for them, and good for me. I have spent some time since returning from Phoenix organizing and simplifying my house. I have quite a pile growing in my garage in preparation for a garage sale.
After three years of "wanting" I finally broke down and bought the closet organizer for the kid's nap room and got all of my business paperwork, supplies, spare kids clothing, blankets, sheets, packages of diapers and wipes neatly arranged in the closet instead of piled on the floor and desk! It's made an amazing difference.

I guess I haven't been completely still. But I will get back to this for a while! I miss you!