I woke up this morning, excited at first, and then overwhelmed by the “go back to sleep you can start tomorrow” voices. I got plenty of sleep last night. I wore my bite guard, because I’m grinding so badly in my sleep lately, that I’ve got headaches all day. So. I did everything right. I got good sleep. I ate clean before bed. I had all of my gear set about and charged and clothes laid out, all the things done beforehand so I wouldn’t have roadblocks.

And then The Voices started chiming in.

“you’re so sleepy.”

“it’s your day off”

“you DESERVE to rest”

Let me just say…Dem Bitches Be Loud and Crazy!!!

and a little persuasive…only for one snooze then I gag-balled them and rolled on out. Packed my bike. Filled my camelbak. Attached my music. Had a half a cup of coffee and skedaddled. I was meeting one of my best friends and his daughter (who called me “Homeslice” in a text last night…have you heard that? Homeslice? like Homegirl maybe?)and we were going BIKING!

Yes it’s 119 THOUSAND degrees outside, but we started about 7:30 am. We rode 7 miles. We had to start and stop and break and get water and cajole each other into keepin on keepin on. Piper is going into the 11th grade (HOW COME ALL OF MY BABIES ARE GROWING UP SO FAST??? WTH?) and Bless Her Heart. I mean it. God Bless Her. She felt woozy and sweaty and throw uppy and made me feel so much better for my feeling woozy and sweaty and throw uppy my own self. I’m the biggest whiner when it comes to exercise, I will hands down admit that. But it’s…tricky. There’s seat adjustment and gear adjustment and your feet fly off the pedals if it’s not correct and that seat, (no matter if you have a gel cover on it), feels like your straddling the Log Ride at Six Flags..without the water. My hooha will likely be screaming at me tomorrow… and not in the I just had a great night with George Clooney kind of screaming. There’s hills and there’s other riders who are zooming past you and you are for sure they’re muttering under their breath, “who let the touched kids have bikes?” Riding into wind? Well that’s a thing. The blazing ass sun is another thing. I was my very own incarnation of Bridget Jones on the exercise bike…who is kicking ass and then just falls onto the floor. I kept thinking of Chrome who rides all over hell’s half acre in NYC and it’s just her daily routine…wow. Just wow.

But I didn’t fall.

I didn’t throw up.

I did walk the bike a few steps because I felt like my hip joints were going to spontaneously combust and I would look really really awkward if that happened. . . and really…with the giant purple bicycle helmet on, walking my bike from tree shade to tree shade and humming Your Sex Is On Fire under my breath…who wants to chance looking awkward???

I got a little nervous riding through the intersections where there are concrete pillars that are seperated for us…but I remembered Cindy’s words…Look at where you want to go. It helps with balance. Sure did!

I made it back to my car in one piece. I high fived my riding companions and was amazed at what we’d just done. I was laughing and sweating and sucking my camelbak like it actually WAS George Clooney and I thought…

Dem bitches be crazy alright…and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Homeslices-7 Couch-0

 

I haven’t used this space for much more than making lists of things to do. It’s become more of a check off bla bla bla than a space where I actually write anything significant. Quite frankly, I don’t know if that’s going to change anytime soon…so don’t get excited.

This weekend was/is crazy social. Rachel’s birthday Friday night. PseudoFamily gathering last night. Talaura’s in the state, but her time is limited so I don’t know if I’ll get to see her face this trip. (it’s so hard to see everyone on quick trips like this) Lynn’s birthday brunch today. We’re going to celebrate Peruvian Independence by heading to the Inca place for ceveche and all kinds of strange delectables. I think I’ll skip the pool today and go get a few groceries, a bicycle helmet and look for a desk or file cabinet. Organizing the backroom…it’s going to be written on my tombstone.

As per your advice, I’m going against getting a shredder. I’ll just sack up all the stuff to burn and hold it till the burn ban goes away sometime in Janurary. Ha. (Lord. Please let this weather break soon. Tuesday’s high is 111 degrees.)

Did I tell you I got a bicycle? Delbert gave me her old one and while there are a few things that needs be tweeked…maybe get a new seat…I’m going to start riding. Hopefully. I’m afraid. kind of. That it will hurt my hooha. that I will fall off. But getting back on the bicycle is metaphorical for the things that are about to start happening in my life. So. Giddyup.

Time for one more cuppa and finish this episode of Gilmore Girls…then it’s Peruvian Independence Day! Huzzuah! Halakaleem!

 

I made progress on the house yesteday. Moved some furniture around (thanks to Lynn’s help) and moved some things out. It’s getting there. I have mountains of papers to go through and shred. I think I need to buy a shredder today…are they pricey do you think? I’ll check into that. I’ve got to put things on shelves, move stacks of books to sell and garage sale items to the shed, take a stack or two of cookbooks to Nonna. She lost all of her collection in the tornado and I’m thinning mine out.

Stuff.

I’m just not interested in keeping things for the sake of “collecting” anymore. I want clean. I want space. I want organized. so I’m getting there. It feels good.

The cats are freaked out by the furniture move and I have no place to set my morning coffee cup so perhaps yet another arrangement will happen. I need some end tables I think…hell I don’t know what I need. I need the people with unlimited funds from TLC to come overhaul my landscaping and my insidescaping.

The weekend is going to be nice. We’ve got some birthdays to celebrate. Rachel and Lynn both turn a page and we’ll be sure to celebrate fully. I can’t believe we’re at the end of the month. Where has this year gone???

Happy Friday, ya’ll.

Sitting here sipping my coffee out of my favorite Keep Calm and Carry On coffee mug, I’m taking a moment(s) to be aware and thankful.

I had a great weekend with family. I had uneventful drives to and from, safe and sound.

Had a slow day yesterday at work, but my last client said, as he says every four weeks, that he’s never had a better haircut. So I’m doing something right.

I hung out with the LT’s and Mama T. We went for a swim, then ate salad and pizza and watched our favorite Gene Simmons Family Jewels. It was the season finale. I love any excuse to have a party and I’ve been lacking on time with these girls all summer due to my crazy work schedule. It did my heart good to have some time with them.

I came home to a hot house. My immediate reaction was “well. the unit’s blown up” I mean we’re at day 35 of triple digit temps. Something’s gotta give, right? But apparently, I just turned it way up as I left yesterday, it’s working fine but it took forever to cool the house so neither the cats nor I got any kind of sleep last night…which brings me to today. I don’t start my day until 3:15. But…at least I’ve got three cuts and two colors! I’m grateful for the easy morning. I’m grateful for the appointments tonight.

Being in the moment, being grateful…it’s something I do really well—and then I just lose it. Life gets crazy. The voices get loud. I don’t take the moments and really use them to be actively involved in it. I think it’s just human nature, so I don’t beat myself up for it. I am, however putting it back on my list starting today.

Hope you’re putting yourself back on your list. I’m going to have one more cup of coffee, some toast (I’m eating the Ezekial bread. I’m really loving it. Do you? Have you tried it?) and then move some more furniture around and put clothes on hangers. Have a great(ful) one!

 

Made a fast trip up to the family in Arkansas this weekend to bang hair, celebrate birthdays and play with the kiddos. As usual, we never have time to do anything, see much of each other, or get much accomplished before it’s time for me to leave.

These short visits are frustrating at worst, and at best they tide us over until the next one. I’m so excited that we’ve got a weekend on the books for them to come hang out at my house and just chill out and do stuff. September I think is when that’ll happen.

I really wish I just could have my sister for a long weekend. Just us girls. It’ll happen eventually, the boys are getting older and easier to leave. Someday. Until then, I’m just so thankful that she and I have a relationship that is good and filling and easy. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have with women about their sisters that start out in the negative. Bitch. Complain. Whine. Moan. Vent. Growl. Real anger. Displaced anger. Anything and absolutely everything negative.

And I listen. Because we all have those moments of grrr with family. But all the while I’m listening, and nodding and being the soundboard I’m mentally sending up a prayer of thanks that my sister and I just don’t have that. When I said just this to her this weekend, she laughed and said, “what’s there to fight about?”

Because it’s really just her and I. Team Us.

indeed Sisser….what is there to fight about?

I’m channeling her now, laundry is going, hanging on the line to dry (and the line broke. yeah. another awesome thing) I’ve got the floors swept and the kitchen cleaned and I’m about to bust out the mop and the Shark to steam clean. I’ve got veggies marinating to grill tonight. My portobello mushrooms had molded dangit, so it’ll be veg and maybe some couscous I picked up when I was feeling fancy. Even when I get my stuff done here, I know she will have miles to go before she sleeps.

Before I close, I want to link to another blogpost. It’s one of the greatest things I’ve read in awhile, for all of us who have struggled with our bodies, with finding clothes that fit, with feeling inferior when we look at the magazines that tell us the stars are JUST LIKE US…my fatass they are. Did Jennifer Anniston just have to repair a clothesline that was full of clean wet clothes that are now covered in grass that smells of cat pee? Pfffft. I digress. Go. I implore you. Read the post. And then say with me…Tailored? WFT? That’s awesome…now how much does that shit cost???

What is there to fight about…indeed.

>She turns 35 today.

She turns 36 today.

I don’t know how we are the numbers we are…it goes by so fast…but we are better friends, closer sisters now than we have ever been.

She can calm me down, and vice versa. We just FEEL better when we can say the real thing that is making us crazy….full confessions…we laugh and cry together like no other. I miss her living close. I would give anything if she could just come over for a weekend day and help rearrange furniture, or sit out in the yard in the fall around the firepit, or go shopping…I miss those times.

I’ll drive to Arkansas tomorrow to celebrate her’s and Mom’s birthdays this weekend. We’ll bang some hair, we’ll talk and plan (hopefully) a get-away and our first annual Sister Trip. It’ll be fast, as it always is. But better than nothing.

Have a blessed Friday…and if you have one…call your sister today and tell her you love her. If you don’t…you can borrow mine and send her some love here. She’s got a heart that is big enough to love all of us.

Got most of my list accomplished.

Mowed the front yard.

Went to work for a noon mens cut

went to school and wasted elevently million hours chasing my tail…cannot charge books (yes Whit, I know about half dot com but half dot com doesn’t charge on my student loan and the refund won’t be here before classes start) until August 8th. Found out that my work study just means that I’m ELLIGEABLE to work. I have to go search the job listings and apply. it’s a monday thru friday gig for most of them, and frankly for 700 a semester I don’t know if I will just have the time. sigh. AND I found out that apparently I was supposed to get a Broncho Spirit card in the mail. I have not. I more than likely threw the damned thing away. So another trip tomorrow to pay 10 bucks and apply for another one. It’s the way the school issues a refund from loans. Gah.

Back to the salon for one more mens cut then home to cook some good dinner. It was less than. I made squash and zuchinni fritter things, some baked fish, carrots and asparagus. The veg was good. The fish was ok. The fritter things were meh. I’m fighting the urge for OrangeLeaf froyo. I should go put on some shorts and go rake the leaves that my tree is dropping. Because it’s freakin hot and giving up too.

le sigh.

more than likely…Ima sit and watch these eps of sex and the city on tv. after all…I got all my list done but for some laundry…and I’ve still got clean undies.

 

My day has rescheduled to the end of the week, so at this point, I’ve zero appointments on my book. So….I’m hoping for some call-ins this afternoon.

Meanwhile I’m going to go borrow Lynn’s mower and pay her with some gazpacho. It’s time to get this yard in order. Sweaty hard work? Sure. But it’s going to be that way for God only knows how long. Over 100 every day this week. I don’t even look at the 7-day forecast anymore. gross.

My list of things to do is:

Finish up school stuff. parking sticker et al.

make arrangements to rid myself of futon.

mower.

laundry.

If I can throw in some work that pays money in there…well that’ll be great, too.

I celebrated my mom’s birthday by going to my first 3D movie.

It was everything I ever wanted the movie to be, and then some. Perfect ending to what has become one of the most beloved series of books in my life. Perfect. My viewing partner was perfect as well, in that we both did the ugly cry for about the last 45 minutes of the movie. No shame. Just tears and popcorn and friendship.

I had to take my purple phone to the phone doctor today. Four trips back to the shop and I picked up my brand new replacement phone. It pays to have that 7 dollar insurance plan. I’m due for an upgrade but not until November. At this rate, I won’t need one!

I BOUGHT SCHOOL SUPPLIES!!! Did you know that Staples had one amazing sale and things change each week? I got pens and pencils and paper for ONE PENNY!!! limit two. ONE PENNY FOR TWO THINGS!! The most expensive thing I bought was 5$ and it was a battery operated pencil sharpener. I got paper and folders and notecards and comp books and pens and highlighters…OH MY!!! Lord but I love supplies.

School starts in five weeks. shitthebed.

Supper was a bowl of my trial gazpacho…holycrap.

Bowl of cold soup, chopped avacado on top, with some whole wheat crunchy brown rolls to sop it up with. I also had the other half of the chicken breast I ate at lunch. Cold canteloupe and strawberries with cardamom and kids? I am in heaven!!!

It was so. stupid. good. And there is NOTHING in it that is “bad” or counts against you in any way! I’m so happy Cindy and Talaura shared their recipes with me. I glommed mine together, but it for sure won’t be the last time I make it! Perfect for these 100 plus temps!

I just had to tell you how good it was! SLURP!

Today is my Mom’s birthday! I just called her and she’s going about her day as usual. Feeding the boys. Picking up my sisters house. Running a load of laundry. Hopefully they’ll celebrate a little tonight. I’m heading that way on Saturday after I get off work. We’ll celebrate hers and Taryn’s births then.

I made gazpacho yesterday! I surfed the net for different recipes and then Cindy emailed me her’s as well. I had to substitute a few things, but for the most part it looks and tastes delish. Its in my fridge just marinating all of those flavors. I will have it to eat this week. I have to say, I’m pretty excited about it.

Today, I shall celebrate Mom’s birthday by hitting the 10:20 am showing of Harry Potter. In 3D. It’ll be my first 3D movie. Ever. I’m already afraid of that damned snake, but more excited than anything! Huzzuah!

Hope your Monday is peaceful!