Back-to-Back Pressure

The pressure hits, my eyes flip open. The silence is complete throughout the house. Not even the sound of the furnace pushing heat through the vents is present. I'm afraid to move. I don't want to feel the ache. The debate begins.

Do I try to get up to relieve the pressure and risk waking the kids?

Or do I try to go back to sleep  by pretending the pressure doesn't exist?

The silence is wonderful and I want to savor it, but pressure calls. Softly, my foot steps pad over to the bathroom. The plan was to make it quick, get in, get out. Of course my muscles have been holding in the pressure so long, they won't let go. I need to hurry up and the pressure to release the pressure is not helping. My children tend to have a six sense when I'm up. Trying not even to breath hard, I try to imagine the water trickling out of the faucet. Initially this helps, but the flow of the stream feels to be a trickle, not helping my urgency to finish up and get back to my warm bed. My muscles are refusing to release the stream so I lean forward trying to help the flow.

All in all, this all ends up taking five minutes. It must've been some world record for the longest pee (I'll have to look that up). Tip-toeing it back to my bed, I'm all snuggled back into the warmth when I hear the first sounds of movement. Mission not complete. Frankly, I wasn't even all that satisfied from the relief of the pressure because my muscles were still so tense.

I guess the moral of the story is don't drink so much water before going to bed.

Have a great day!

Keyless and Stuck Outside

The weather has drastically dropped this week, needless to say it's really cold outside. Normally I don't relent to the treadmill until it snows, but it's really cold outside and I don't feel like fighting the wind. In the spirit to curve the sugar intake, I decide to take on the treadmill early.

So I head down to the basement, I plug the treadmill into the wall, get on the belt and there's no key. The treadmill doesn't work unless you have the pullout key. I look around and nothing,. For the past ten years, the key has never been messed with. Now I am extremely PISSED. Good thing the kids were at school when I discovered this. I end up going outside anyway and taking a nice long jog. It definitely cooled me off. On the positive side, it was sunny outside.

Maybe it's a sign I can get a new treadmill. I can only guess one of my lovely children or their friends were the culprit, but it's lost and nothing I can do about it. The handyman of the house said he could possibly hot wire it when he gets home so maybe a new treadmill isn't in my future.

For now, I'm stuck running outside.

Stay warm and enjoy your day!

Sucrose Overdose

Halloween candy has dragged on a little too long this year for me (the girls got too much good stuff this year). I've eaten my fill and then some so it is time to put the candy away. The image that keeps coming to mind is Violet from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" movie when she eats the candy that makes her blow up like a large blueberry and the Oompa-Loompas have to roll her out of the scene. I'm feeling a little bluish. Thanksgiving is only two weeks away. I need to stop the madness. 

In order to sever the sugar pipe, I go for some hot chocolate to help curve the craving (I know its still chocolate and sugar, but it's supposed to help). It's the first step to withdrawing from sugar.

Boil the water
Add chocolate powder to a cup
Fill cup with boiling water
Ready to drink

Simple process except it doesn't quite taste right. Then it hits me, I just put Nestle Quik in the cup instead of the Hot Chocolate powder. If you ever do this, don't add the Hot Chocolate powder to it. It doesn't help just start all over again.

Note to self: separate Nestle Quik and Hot Chocolate Powder. 

Seeded Victory!

I think I've found the hardest piece of fruit to eat and possibly the messiest. Commonly baffled by the small quantity of substance that it offers, I always come away full and satisfied especially considering the energy expended digging down attempting to fight to the last seed. I've never met another fruit that battles to a bloody mess for every spoonful of seeds. Between the vicious blood-red juice squirting you in the eye or splattering across your face, your neck, your computer, your book, I find myself diving in for another slippery, juicy red seed only to be attacked again. In a masochistic moment, I keep going back for more just to conquer that last stubborn seed hiding under the flesh against the wall of the fruit. Don't judge, feeling victory over a seed is still a victory.

Can you guess what fruit I am describing?

I know the suspense is killing you.

Pomegranate!

Now, go out and vote! Then stop at the store and try a pomegranate.

Have a great day!

Call a Spade a Spade!

Over the years, I've picked up some heavy sarcasm. I've always been a serious, focused, goal orientated person, but the other side of me always wanted to have fun too. The sarcasm has become the product of my personality fighting with itself. In the past few years, the sarcasm has become more progressive by the influence of others (I don't know, possibly my husband). The more I have to deal with people outside of my family, the more I need a coping mechanism. Hence, we have sarcasm.

Now that you have some background, I can get to the story. This actually happened about a month ago, but I needed some time to figure out the approach.

So I was invited to join a book club through one of the other soccer moms on Child #1's team (who I've become close friends with over the past few years. She still likes me even with my flaws). Since I read like a crazy scientist that never sees the light of day, she thought I would be a perfect fit for this group. It was actually her first time joining the book club as well. I thought okay I should try this. I wanted to expand my boundaries, do something out of the box, improve myself as a person, blah, blah, blah. If it didn't workout, I could just not come again. No problem.

I enter the person's house that is hosting the book club, I'm the third one there. The hostess and another woman that I've met before (these two are best buds). They are gracious with introductions and offer drinks. Then my friend who invited me shows up. We chat and everyone falls into conversation. Then two more women show up. One looks at me like I might've grown a wart on my face and it was still growing right before her eyes. (Okay so I wasn't dressed exactly for a night out on the town, clad jeans, ponytail, no makeup, glasses, tennis shoes, no jewelry, but it was a fucking book club at a persons house. Come On! I thought I dressed the part perfectly as the book worm.) The other women I've met as well through another function I went to. Introductions are made around the circle. I think to myself, I can handle this (Besides my friend that invited me, there are only four other women at this book club. That makes six total people at this club. If my friend and I didn't show up, there would've only been four people).

The conversation continues. The one woman who looked at me like I was a space alien (did I mention she was weighted down with jewelry, every finger had something on it, multiple bracelets, earrings, necklaces) asked what I did for a living. Here is where the sarcasm rears its ugly head.

"Nothing." Then I proceed to stuff my mouth with brownies.

Silence, all eyes on me. They all look horrified at me. (I didn't mention that the four women that I wasn't friends with previously were dressed all to the nines. My friend was dressed casually, but not all jeweled up.)

Another one, laughs and says, "So you eat bon bons all day."

With my mouth full of brownie, I say, "Yep. Well actually it's cookies."

My friend tries to help me out and says, "That's not true, you do a whole bunch of stuff."

When I'm sinking on a ship, I like to be on it by myself so I stick to my story. My answer goes back to the days when I worked full time. People would always ask me what I did. They would always make a big deal about what I did so I started to down play what I did because it was just a job. Sometimes things appear to be more exciting than they really are. In everything we do, there is always a downside and an upside. So now, I just respond I do nothing otherwise I would have to go into a monologue of everything I do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. It's boring can't we just talk about other things. Who cares what we all do for a living. Let's just talk about a book. It's way more exciting. All this is going through my head, but I keep it securely repressed from reaching my lips.

At this point, I thought we were waiting for more women to show up because we hadn't started discussing the book yet. I also have consumed two alcoholic beverages in a matter of one hour so I've become a little more social and excited than I normally am. The hostess does try to veer the group to discuss the book by asking a question about it. I'm pretty sure this is the point it all goes down hill for me. Suddenly the topic of conversation switches to someone's head stone. I become quiet and try to follow where this is going because I must've missed something. They continue to talk about a woman and viewing a head stone at a cemetery. I still can't figure it out so I ask whose head stone is it. It turns out that the headstone is for a baby ( I know it is a very sad subject, but we are at a book club. A little inappropriate.) who was stillborn a month prior to a woman whose not even at the book club. This conversation continues for a full complete hour. Since I've lost interest in this whole thing, I'm feeling this club is definitely not for me. I'm almost positive all my feelings were written on my face. I can't keep a poker face to save my life.

Finally the conversation is veered to other topics that I can join in on. Then the gossip club (oops, I meant book club) wraps up and they discuss what book is going to be the next book to read. I think to myself, why even bother you don't even discuss the book. I try to appear interested and exit as fast as I can. As I'm leaving, I'm wondering if I shouldn't just try it one more time. Maybe this was just an odd night. I want to stay positive.
 
The next evening, I get a call from the hostess of the book club. This was strange in itself, but I answered the phone and immediately I knew why she called. She was beating around the subject and was having a hard time saying what she wanted to say so I helped her out.

I laughed and said, "I won't be offended if you don't want me to come to the book club next month."

She thanked me and insisted it wasn't her decision and she really wanted me to be part of the group (we had a great conversation the night before), but others didn't think I was a good fit. Then she asked if I could still send her an invite to my www.shelfari.com page.

Whoa, back up here. You don't want me to show up to your stupid book club, but you still want to see what kind of books I read and recommend and what I have to say about them. WTF! Next time, you invite someone to your club, inform them that it is an exclusive gossip club and you are not allowed to invite anyone else unless you get the weighted down jewelry queen's approval. Good Luck!

My friend who invited me was more upset about this situation than I was, but what a great friend she is because she is now boycotting that book club and we are starting our own. Anyone can join even if you need to wear a wig and dress like a homeless person, you will still be welcome.

Have a nice day!