stuff

I had no other title for this post. And I've really been into list form lately so just put up with it until it passes.

1. I'm moving. About a mile away so I'm not really sure why I'm stressed out about it. Especially since I'm so in love with our new place and I have plenty of time to get everything ready(30 days). Something about moving just STRESSES me out. We've been in this condo for 4 years now and it's been great. I'm really happy for whoever gets to live here because it's the sunniest window-est place we've ever been in. But we've been wanting to move for a long time and it's taken us this long to find something we like. I'm superstitious so I won't go into details about this new place until I'm moved in. Keep your fingers crossed for me for the next 4 weeks, I don't relocate very well. I should be an expert at it since we've moved so many times but I get more stressed out than a bridezilla when I move. Under all the anxiety is a huge YAY, though. Details later.

2. I haven't looked for shark teeth in what seems like ages. And it feels like all is not right in the world when it's been this long. I can't blame it on the weather, the Florida fall makes me feel sorry for anyone who doesn't live here. It's because ever since I hated my July vacation pictures of myself , I've made a commitment to make exercise a priority in my life again. Exercise is really good for my self esteem even if I don't notice any change in the mirror so I've been jogging just about everyday and I don't jog on the beach like every other sane jogging person around here. As I've said before, this is torture. I cannot jog or do anything at the very place where thousands of shark teeth are waiting to be picked up by me. No I can't. So I jog in my neighborhood fitness room or at a park down the road. I would go crazy otherwise. I can't explain it, that's just the I am.

3. I hurt my neck today. I was driving and trying to take off a jacket at the same time. Suddenly my neck got mad at me. It hurts.

4. I realize most people wouldn't dream of moving during the Holiday season but strangely it makes me more excited. It will be a tight squeeze but I look forward to unpacking my Christmas decorations and celebrating a New Year in a new home. A home that I don't have memories of being sick or "radioactive" in. Does that make sense? Does to me.

Everyone is posting about how to cut costs

I'll admit I'm not the best at it. Some of these are pretty much common knowledge but in a community like mine where people have not/will likely not ever feel any kind of economic slow down, what I do might sound a little radical.

1. I buy store brand products. Dish soap, laundry detergent, paper towels,lotion, even shampoo and soap. Target brand oatmeal soap costs 2 dollars less than Aveeno and my hypersensitive skin doesn't know the difference. Walmart Claratin works for me too. I've never been obsessed with name brands anyway. And that includes clothes and shoes.

2. I do my own nails and toes. People where I live assume that everyone just has loads and loads of money on their hands. I sometimes get asked where a good place is to get a manicure. I always get a surprised look of disbelief when my reply is," I can't really say because I do mine myself." The response is always,"Well I just don't have the time to do them myself." Yes you do! You have the time to get dressed, get in your car, sit in the salon for at least a half hour and then 15 to dry so don't tell me you don't have the time. I can do my nails and toes in less than 20 minutes and if I do them at night while I'm already winding down, I can let them dry while I watch tv without worrying about messing it up. So the best place for a mani-pedi? My house for free.

3. When I buy meat, I'll buy the family size even though I only cook for 2. I cook what I need and take the time to portion the rest out for the freezer. It takes just a few seconds.

4. Library Library Library! There's a GREAT library a five minutes walk from my house. They have a take-leave magazine shelf where I leave all my old magazines(old meaning from last month) and there's always a few National Geographic Mags I can bring home. There's hundreds of DVDs and I might have to wait a couple weeks before I can read the newest books if I don't get there before everyone else but I don't really care. I see a lot of smart moms/dads with kids when they have story reading(I do better voices than the lady they have but she does ok) and what a great place to bring a kid . My favorite part-it's FREE! I used to spend so much money on books I'll never even read again. They also have a used book store where I can get great art books for 5 dollars.

5. I am not snobby about going to the matinee movie on a rainy day. It's raining anyway! I have friend who won't step foot in any theatre before dark for fear of looking like a senior citizen at 32. The whole idea of spending more to please other nameless faceless people who care more about themselves than 'you' is a whole blog post for another day. I will stay mum on whether or not I sneak in my own drink.....

6. I commented about this on another blog and I'm sure I've posted about this before. I hang dry most of my own clothes. That goes for the husband's clothing too. I have pieces that I bought years and years ago that still look new because of this. This is not practical for everyone but, I live in a condo so I use my shower curtain thingy(I can't think of the right word) as my clothesline. I only use my dryer for towels and blankets. Well socks too. So imagine this saves a little on the electricity but I can't really say because I live in hot Fla and it costs a fortune to keep our 3rd floor place bearable in the summer. But my clothes last a long time and I don't always need to run out and get something new for this or that. Obviously the shopping part is more fun but I stay away from trendy clothing so I can wear anything in my closet when in a pinch. I'm moving to a better place in the near future so hopefully our elcetric bill will go down. For real this time. I take really good care of my shoes too.

7. I got asked this question last night(by someone like me whose husband works and they don't have kids) so I feel like I need to tell everyone about it: "who walks your dog?" I DO. Um yeah.

How do you feel about the Holidays being sprung upon us so quickly?

I noticed Christmas stuff at the grocery store today. Usually I get irritated about how early stores start putting out Christmas stuff. Oddly, today it made me happy. I stood there for a long time wondering if I should also start early, buy a cinnamon broom or one of those little bears with elf shoes one. I almost bought red and green Hershey's kisses until I remembered my still left over Fun Bag sized Mini Milky Ways I've been trying not to eat. I even started to hum songs from my Chipmunks Christmas album I had when I was in kidergarten.


On my way out, I had a hard time leaving because my car was blocked and I couldn't back out. I couldn't back out because some people who had just arrived were having a conversation with someone else who happenned to still be in her car. They decided a good place to have this conversation was right behind my car after they had watched me put my groceries in the back, get in and turn the ignition. Usually I just wait a few seconds when this happens but today I beeped. I beeped because I had just ran 2 miles and was eager to get home and eat lunch. They still took their time in getting out of the way, probably because they thought it was rude of me to beep. So, whilst waiting, I remembered why I get irritated at stores during the Holidays and forgot that I had just decided to be happy when I arrived. Yup.

Blue Angels

I took more but Blogger only lets me do 4 at a time and I'm really impatient right now. Enjoy these and I'll post some more later. Click on them to make them bigger.

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone is having fun. Eat a lot of candy corn and enjoy the jack o' lanterns.......The Pea family is handing out chocolate. Stay safe everyone and have a good weekend.

Reunited and it feels so good

I finally got my haircut today. It's been since May but it really didn't count as a real haircut that time because I got this genius idea to try an $18 dollar place. Never again. My sister whose hair is the same length and texture as mine found a place where she lives that charges $18 without a wash and blow dry and she LOVED it, swore she'll never go anywhere else, told me I should try it out here where I live since it's a chain. I've been looking for a new place to go because I got really sick of paying $75 for someone to cut my long, straight, easy to cut hair because the girl I'd been going to for a long time ran off to Minnesota(of all places to run off to). I went to a spa place a few times and I really liked it, I even got a massage there last year while I was recovering from being off my meds for all that time and I was sore. Then another owner took over and turned the place into redneck heaven. Mind you, I love the south. I consider myself a southerner by preference and I can turn on/off my accent when need be. But when I get my haircut or any kind of beauty treatment, I don't want to feel like I'm in the middle of a HeeHaw rerun. I'm not exaggerating. They got some kind of 'company vehicle' , to advertise and impress the customers. Yeah. Hot Pink Hummers with sparkly rims don't appeal to me as a client whatsoever. If this makes me a snob, then I'm just a snob. The stylist I was used to just dissappeared one day and when I asked which salon she moved to they wouldn't tell me, I think because they were hoping I would just say ok, who else is avaliable. No thanks. I was only putting up with the hard core blue grass music and the yelling profanities back and forth between the mother and daughter owners because I liked the way she cut my hair and her price so this gave me an excuse to go somewhere else. Before that I was going to a woman who only charged me $25 and she was really good. I loved her but she decided to become a real estate agent(in this market when I have all this hair dammit!) so again I was a style orphan. Which brought me to the place my sister told me to try. Yeah. The guy they put me with was greasy, his nails were filthy and he smelled like an ash tray that hadn't been cleaned out since the days of Studio 54. And he barely cut anything and what was cut was lopsided. And he charged me $35, not the $18 my sister had me all excited about. So remember the stylist I "broke up with" that one time? In a moment of weakness I decided to go back. Best decision ever. I don't know why I ever fell out of love in the first place. Well ok I know why. It was expensive and I always felt pressured to buy ridiculously priced products when I was done. But oh man did I have beautiful hair once upon a time and it was because of her! So I had to go back. I had to. Why did I not see that before?! I mean, I get a haircut maybe 2-3 times a year. Why should I feel guilty about it? So maybe the shitty economy is actually good for something because it didn't cost me as much as before(although it was still a little pricey but I need to stay in this moment a bit longer). And all I did was say no thanks when a product was suggested for me to buy. Oh to have pretty hair again. It was beginning to look like I had just been kicked out of the Garden of Eden.


How much is too much to spend for a haircut to you guys?

Mr.Pea

I don't mention him much because, and this is a good thing but, I'm still one of those wives who, after 12+ years can still gush like an obnoxious teenager in love and it probably comes off as sappy if I really get started. I would just get on your nerves, trust me. But since I never post about him and I feel like posting a few things, so dammit I'm going to. In list form.

~Even though we got engaged in December and married in March, in my true heart I consider November 5th our real anniversary. Here's why-- he told me on November 5, 1996 to remember that day for the rest of my life even if I never saw him again and to remember this advice: "never let anyone take advantage, treat you badly, or take you for granted, even me- especially me, because you deserve happiness." You can imagine the kind of jerks I had dated up to that point because that was the first time a man other than my father had ever said that to me. I knew he was the one.

~ The summer before I met him I was severely under weight and constantly sick with sinus infections, brochitus, flus stuff like that. My doctor was concerned that I had an eating disorder and told me to gain 15 pounds and start eliminating whatever stress was in my life that was causing me to lose so much weight. So I did and I really did get better. Fast forward a few months of me being healthy again and in a serious relationship with my then future husband. I confided in him about how self conscience I was about my very necessary weight gain and he said(with his French accent mind you),"What are you talking about? I don't like a too skinny girrrl. I like belly on girrrl. Gain more weight then. Let's go eat right now." Why am giggling writing this? See I told you...sapsapsap (By the way I don't truly know if what I was going through was a "textbook" eating disorder because I did research and none of the symptoms really fit me except for the fact that I was severely underweight. To this day I don't know what that was. Stress maybe? Who knows! Once I gained the weight, I stopped getting all those sinus infections so I kept the weight on and decided to just be healthy.)

~ For about a year and half he worked in California during the week and flew home for the weekends. One day he called and pretended that, for some reason, just realised he didn't remember how small my feet were and was "just wondering what size they were" for no specific reason. You get where this is going? That's how bad of a liar he is. He brought home two pairs of shoes for me as a "just cuz" gift. This was almost 10 years ago and I still have them. His taste is that good. I mean he bought me these last Christmas. And you see, it's not like the gifts were just because we were still newlyweds, he's still like that.

~ When I was "fresh out of surgery" I was having a really hard time. I won't go into the details since over the past couple years I've talked about all the complications so blahblah I had a really horrible surgery to remove cancer with horrible complications blahblahblah. My heart rate was too high and I was in and out of conscience. The thing I remember the most was him holding on to one of my fingers. I was somewhat aware of it and in my drugged state, I felt that his holding onto my finger was the only thing that was keeping me from falling off the Earth. Obviously he didn't know it at the time but he told me later that he held on to my finger for so long because every time he let go, my heart rate would go back up.

~ He never acts jealous. PERIOD. This is such a PLUS because I hate people who act jealous and I would not be in a relationship with someone who didn't allow me to breathe. PERIOD. I could come home and say, "I'm sorry I'm so late but there was this monkey in the road who needed my help so I had to drive him to the store and buy him some Hershey's kisses for his friend the sea lion who lives in that purple shack downtown and we had to go pick him up too because the fish from Utah were in jail so naturally we had to go bail them out before we headed to the strawberry parade. " And he would say,"Omigosh are you ok? Sit down a bit then, you're probably tired."

~ This is going to sound silly for a second but go with me on this one. There's this line in a Al Pacino movie from a while back ago. It's a football movie, I think by Oliver Stone. It's not my favorite movie AT ALL, I'm not really a "football girl." But it's my favorite line because in the movie Al Pacino plays a football coach and he's trying to convince his quarterback, who's been injured and is now ok to play but is really scared to play again. The player says to him,"I'm scared coach." And Al Pacino says something like,"You can do it. Come on we can do it. Me and you. ME. AND. YOU." Anytime there's an uncertainty be it sickness, economic, anything, everything,whatever---that's what I think about when something comes up. That line.
ME. AND. YOU. And that's they way it will always be. Or I think it's You and me, but you get the point......