Category Archives for ‘Experiences’

So far I am unamused by today.

Jason and I got into a fight right off the bat this morning because he gets uber-cranky and stressed out when he’s busy in the morning and I have an extremely low tolerance for screaminess at the children on holidays before 7am (although I apparently have a very healthy tolerance for screaminess at the husband before 7am).

Then I took Gray and Jonas over to Gray’s school for a festive ‘Math Party’ at Gray’s classroom. This went fine until of course we had to leave to take Jonas to his school. Jonas was not pleased. He sat in stoney silence the entire ride to his school and every time I turned around to check on him, he gave me a look that can only be described as, ‘plotting your death in the most painful way I can imagine’. When I signed him in to school he refused to give me a goodbye kiss and dismissed me with (I kid you not), “I’m, like, just so over you, Mom.”

And as I was walking out the Montessori door, I over-heard the following conversation between two moms.

Mom 1: We had a visit from our little friends again last night. But I think I got them all.

Mom 2: Oh my god, you did? I haven’t seen any since the other day when I told you about them. The stuff I got from the drug store must have totally worked.

Mom 1: You’ll have to text me the brand name so I can pick some up. I used a little comb last night and I think it’s taken care of, but you never know.

We’ve never had lice at our house (KNOCKING ON EVERY WOOD SURFACE I CAN FIND), but I know the code words. I almost ran back inside and told Jonas to stay away from the little girls whose mothers I heard talking, but he wasn’t speaking to me so I figured there was no point. He’d probably go rub heads with them just to spite me.

Oh, and it’s cloudy out. Stupid Valentine’s Day.

But hey, at least I’ve got a cute picture to post:

Happy Stupid Valentine’s Day, Internet. (Jonas is lying. He doesn’t really love you. He thinks you suck.)

Jason started a new diet on Sunday. It’s a whole thing involving large slabs of meat paired with beans and fields of veggies at every meal. He also has to swing a kettle bell (not to be confused with ‘kettle ball’, which is apparently not a thing) and take freezing showers in the morning. He’s starting a blog to track his progress, but he says it’s not done yet (which means it’s not perfectly perfect and flawless) so I’m not allowed to link to it yet. He did say I could post his before pictures, though:

Jason says he’s tired of being fat and needs to get in shape. I don’t have a problem with his physique (I like my men burly), but I think the general idea of healthiness is a good one. I mean we all love butter, but we don’t want to end up 300 pounds, hawking diabetes meds and hated by the general public, now do we, Paula?

So, like I said, I think the diet is probably a good idea and I’m trying to be supportive. The problem is; I think the lack of ‘white foods’ (flour, sugar, deliciousness, etc.) is affecting the patience center of Jason’s brain. I think the already quite emaciated portion of Jason’s brain devoted to his ability to tolerate my neediness and the kids’ general kidocity has been quickly starved into submission and is almost unable to function at all. It must have thrived completely on toast, is what I’m thinking.

Now whenever I say, “You seem kind of crabby, what’s wrong?” instead of an explanation about work or some other irritation I get a death glare. It’s sort of like this:

But, you know, with less ears and more eyebrow.

There’s also been an uptick in the amount of snappiness around the house.

Me: So what have you been doing in the office for the last hour?

Jason: My ab workout.

Me: How come you’re doing it in there? That room sort of smells like cat pee and tortoise habitat.

Jason: BECAUSE YOU’LL LAUGH AT ME IF I DO IT OUT HERE.

Me (under my breath): I… might not… Screamy McShoutypants.

Because I have the emotional maturity and stability of a teenage girl who just got dumped by her first boyfriend, I started taking some of this diet moodiness personally. Generally speaking, I need constant reassurance that my husband likes me and wants to be around me or I start to get paranoid he has a whole other wife and family in Ohio I know nothing about that he’s decided he likes better than us.

Tuesday morning I woke to my 4:30AM running alarm blaring, feeling residually cranky from Jason’s crankiness the night before (cranky is super contagious). I briefly considered turning it off and going back to sleep, but I had people I was meeting, so I coaxed myself out of bed with promises of the normal things that make leaving the warm comfort of the bed worth it for me in the morning: Diet Coke, Howard Stern, seat warmers.

I got dressed and went downstairs to stretch quickly before getting in the car to drive over to Tempe Town Lake and as I was shuffling down the stairs I remembered something that was going to make the whole thing even less pleasant than getting out of bed before dawn to run 4 miles in the cold(ish) already is: I had parked the GOV on the street the afternoon before so the kids could ride bikes in the garage and the driveway. So the van would be even chillier for the 25 minute drive than it would have been if I’d parked it in the garage like I normally do.

I know it seems like in Arizona it would be a fairly minor temperature change to have a car parked in the garage versus on the street, and it probably is. However, first thing in the morning, when I’m already using all of my willpower just to drag my butt out to do this run, the idea of trooping the extra 15 feet out in the cold to sit in a cold car sounded utterly miserable. I almost started crying. I also almost went back to bed. But because I was dressed and awake, I sucked it up, grabbed a Diet Coke, steeled myself for the bitter, bitter Arizona cold (48 degrees) and opened the door to the garage, practically shivering with self-pity.

Instead of an empty garage I was greeted by the GOV, parked inside and waiting patiently to get all nice and toasty in the driver’s rear end region and make me feel better on my drive.

It was at that point I remembered mentioning to Jason before dinner, “Oh, hey, remind me to put my car in the garage before I go to bed. It will make life so much happier when I have to get up to run tomorrow.” Apparently he hadn’t remembered to mention it to me before I went to bed, but he had taken the time to pull the GOV in himself for me before he came up awhile later. To this moment it still makes me a little teary because it was so nice.

That little stunt bought him forgiveness for at least 5 death glares and 10 snappies. The man may not buy me flowers or plan dates to take me on, but he knows how to say he loves me in ways that really matter. (He also never judges my wine consumption. So he gets points for that as well.)

I have lots of random, half-baked thoughts today, but I can’t come up with a way to turn them into a cohesive blog post, so I’ve decided to stop trying. I’m just going with: ‘It’s Friday and I have a lot going on, so just be happy you’re getting a post at all and stop whining.’

Thought 1

It’s my lovely webmaster/dishwasher/gardener/romantic boy-toy’s 35th birthday today! That’s right, take a second to go on over to twitter and tweet something inappropriate to @jasonnewlin. He obviously loves inappropriatenessocity; he married me.

It’s also my co-blogger over at Wine and a Spoon’s birthday! I know, it’s such a weird coincidence that they have the same birthday! Except not really because they’re twins. Happy Birthday, Jen Newlin! You can feel free to tweet something inappropriate to her also, but I think she might be less amused, so don’t tell her I told you to (Love you, Jen!).

Thought 2

I’ve been thinking about the rapidly shrinking housing inventory in Metro-Phoenix situation we’ve got going on. I have a prediction for how this is all going to play out over the next few years and I want to get it out there in writing so that if I’m right I’ll be able to prove I’m practically a psychic, or at the very least a genius (and if I’m wrong we’ll just never speak of this again).

Here’s how it’s going to go –

Phase 1:  Buyers trying to get into the market while the interest rates are still low have an increasingly difficult time getting under contract because the pool of available houses has shrunk. They make higher offers and those who can, begin doing things like ‘waiving appraisal’.

Phase 2: Prices take a small uptick. The media reports that we’ve ‘really hit the bottom this time, no, we swear it’s for realsies, we’re sure’. This brings out more buyers who want to get in while prices are still low, further reducing the inventory and increasing competition. Prices continue to rise.

Phase 3: Everyone who hasn’t already short sold or foreclosed on the property they own that is underwater scoots to the edge of their seats and watches comps with bated breath to see if finally they might actually be able to sell and break even on the tiny house they bought before they had any kids and are now positively crammed into. Finally they can’t stand it anymore and waves of previously upside-down home owners list their houses in an attempt to get out while the getting is good. This will work for some.

Phase 4: The investors and wannabe investors all got burned and are still recovering from the last market crash, so they don’t come running to snatch up the houses and the market quickly becomes resaturated with property. Price increases grind to a screeching halt.

Phase 5: The remaining short sales and foreclosures (which continue to exist in a constant stream under all of this normal sale drama) begin to drop their prices to get-er-done, once again undercutting the normal sales and causing another market dip.

You’ll see.

Thought 3

My knee still hurts. I’ve ramped up my mileage this week because I’m really getting worried I’m not going to be ready for RAGNAR. It’s had the unfortunate effect of ramping up my knee pain as well. Apparently I can have cardiovascular strength or IT band strength, not both.

My sister says I’m over-thinking and it’s all going to be fine. Despite my well-documented history of over-thinking, I don’t think she’s right this time. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I really think I’m doing just the right amount of thinking about all of this, and not over-thinking at all. Plus she’s a super-athlete and it would be totally fine if she was doing it, but if we were twins, I would be the Danny Devito to her Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m just not convinced it’s going to be totally fine.

So tomorrow I’m going to attempt the 7 mile run again. I’ve decided this is the determining run. If I can make it through and then in 8 hours I can still walk, I will push forward with RAGNAR. If I fail, if it hurts really a lot, if I attempt to hop any fences just to make it all end, well, then I’m waiving the white flag. The race is less than three weeks away; if I’m not well and trained up enough to accomplish 7 miles with mild hills by now, I’m just not going to be ready in time.

Thought 4

This is our 20+ year old cat, Six.

I’m pretty sure she’s just really considerate and has decided to start sleeping here so that when she eventually passes on in her sleep it will be super easy for us to properly dispose of her remains. (Don’t worry, it didn’t happen yet. I can still hear her snoring.)

I’ve been meaning to post these:

This is an outtake from a photo session with Jason’s family over New Years. We were setting up for what was meant to be a ‘goofy’ shot, which is why I’m sitting on Jason’s shoulders. Of course I like this one better than the actual goofy picture. Worth mentioning:

1. Bennett (front, left, seated cross-legged) is setting up for his shtick, which was a yogi-style ‘ohmmm’ pose. I feel like we’re in for a decade or so of watching him perform at amateur night in comedy clubs starting in about 8 years. Hopefully by then he’ll have worked out the difference between being funny and just insulting people.

2. My sister-in-law, Julene (in the grey sweater)’s fiance, Nick, all but disappeared in the mayhem. You can see a bit of his arm if you look close, but otherwise he’s been completely eclipsed.

3. Jonas (front and center in light blue) clearly knows he’s about to get crushed to death, but he’s been so successfully brainwashed by bribery and threats he can’t bring himself move from his designated spot or look away from the camera.

4. Gray (front right in green)’s face is my very favorite part of this picture.

5. My father-in-law, Kenny (in yellow) is totally oblivious to anything amiss.

Julene and Nick got engaged!!

My mother turned 60 a couple of weeks ago. I broke into my parents’ house while they were at work to find some old photos of her to scan in and have printed for a ’60 Years of Kathleen’ poster. Unfortunately my burglar skillz are lacking and once I took down a bunch of photos I couldn’t remember how they went back. Luckily my mom just thought it was her cleaning people stealing from her. This is my favorite of the photos I hadn’t seen before. She looks like a princess.

And last, but only least in size: my brand new nephew, Henry Robert Tolar! How damn cute is he?

As of five days ago my brother is now a father. And because becoming a parent is really only something you can wrap your brain around when it’s actually happened to you, we’re now regularly getting texts from Bobby and my sister-in-law, Erin, that amount to: Damn, newborns like NEVER SLEEP! and Dude, strollers are a pain in the ass and it takes a really long time get out of the house when you have a tiny baby! Who knew?! I’ve so far been successful in resisting the urge to say, “Can we please now rewind to 11 years ago when you and your friends were wearing my nursing bras on your heads because you thought it was just. that. hilarious. and have a small amount of empathy for me?”

My sister and I are heading to SF (because no one but tourists call it San Fran) to meet tiny baby Henry (who already has 4839 nicknames like ‘The Hankinator’ and ‘The Big HRT’) in three weeks and I CANNOT WAIT.

I don’t know if other bloggers ever feel this way, but I go through cycles where I feel burned out and I can’t think of anything about my life I could possibly write that would be interesting or entertaining. I can go weeks where it’s like pulling teeth to come up with topics. Then, magically, I’ll blip back into the mode where I have an opinion I want to share about everything I do.

What can I say? Some of us are calm and even tempered and some of us are more up and down. I’ve never been accused of being even tempered.

My point is, I’m back to feeling opinionated this week! It might have something to do with the endorphins. I did a lot of The Exercising this weekend. I took my favorite ballet class Saturday morning and then on Sunday I ran 4 miles and went back to the studio for an hour of Ballet Boxing class. Then I went home and felt like a superhero except when I tried to stand or move or do anything but lie on the couch and watch rom-coms from the 1990s.

But I digress. I am currently enjoying many things about The Exercising. Which, a year or so ago, are words you probably would have only heard me say while role playing ‘Sexy Swedish Gym Bunny and Manly Trainer Guy’ with my husband. (Just kidding. We only role-play ‘Guy Snoring on the Couch and Wife Watching Teen Mom While Wearing a Snuggie’. Sometimes we switch parts just to spice things up.)

Besides the endorphins, I have to say, I’m totally getting into the outfits involved in The Exercising. It’s apparently not just about the sweating. There’s like a whole cute/functional clothing language I’m learning.

With ballet, beyond the tutus and ballet shoes (which are, admittedly, awesome), it’s all about layers. When you get to class you start in sweat pants and a sweater. Then you do plies and warm up enough to peel down to legwarmers, tights. After tendus you’re starting to sweat and you can lose the sweater. Finally, by the time you’re finished with the barre work and ready to come out to center and work on an adagio you’ve peeled off the legwarmers and you’re down to a leotard and tights. It’s like you’re an Oscar host and you get four costume changes. Or it’s like a really long strip tease with no real payoff at the end and the strippers all wearing their hair in buns.

I really like the ballet layering thing because I have a very small comfort window as far as temperature goes. I’m usually cold, but about 7 minutes into any kind of physical exertion I get tomato-faced and overheated. I find it super useful to just peel off a tiny bit of clothes every time my body temp rises by a degree. Plus layers are just kind of adorable, right? I tried to work this concept into my regular attire this weekend after class by layering over-the-knee socks on top of skinny jeans with calf-height boots and two thin shirts of different colors and shapes and a sweater on top, but when I came downstairs Jason looked me up and down and shook his head. I believe the words he uttered were, “You’re so weird.” I’m not sure that was an endorsement. So that’s still a concept in progress. I haven’t given it up yet. I might just need to do some shopping.

The thing I’m not enjoying about The Exercising is this whole ‘being injured’ nonsense. It’s kind of counter-intuitive for The Exercising to make you feel so awesome it’s like you can accomplish anything, but then when you move forward on that premise and actually try to run farther and faster your body breaks itself and hurts a lot. Who invented this shit anyway? I would like to speak to a manager about how this whole process could be improved. Is there a suggestion box I can put my paper that says, Stop hurting, Stupid Body, into?

Luckily, my current injury (some lame IT band thing) seems to be fairly minor. Plus, since I got my medical degree through Google, I’ve managed to diagnose it and treat it myself with stretching and several hundred dollars spent at the running store (none of which went to adorable outfits, sadly). I’m still planning to be ready to run the RAGNAR Del Sol in a month. (Don’t worry if you don’t know what that is; I’m sure I’ll be discussing it at length as we get closer to it.)

In conclusion and to sum it all up:

The Exercise, Endorphins, Outfits = Good.

My body refusing to live up to the awesomeness of my head = Lame, but we’re working on it.

Continued from I’m Back! on Monday…

Jason forgot his trusty baseball cap at home, so he spent the first part of the trip trying on various hats at gift shops and roadside tourist traps. Apparently in comparison to either most tourists or most Mexicans, Jason has an enormous head. This one was a 'no'.

This was the winning hat. I think it makes him look like a Floridian mobster. But in a good way.

I'm posting this one as revenge for the beach bikini picture Jason tweeted of me without warning or photo-approval. In retrospect, the bikini pic wasn't a horrible photo, but dude. I'm pretty sure one of the commandments Moses brought down from the mountain was, 'Thou shall not post pictures of your wife in a swimsuit on the internet without first allowing her the right to delete it off the face of the Earth if she so wishes." AmIright?

Thursday we ziplined through the jungle. It was rad.

This is me, careening dangerously toward the small platform between ziplines. I completely suck at slowing down. If you could see the look on the photographer's face, it would be one of horror.

Jason thought he would only need dark socks for pants or flip flops for this trip. He didn't anticipate the need for an athletic shoe with shorts. Thus the sexy black sock with shorts look he's sporting here.

After we ziplined they took us to a 'special activity' that turned out to be a bungee swing. That little red spec is Jason getting ready to jump.

This is me a fraction of a second after the guy at the top said, "Are you going to jump or do you need to be pushed?" and without waiting for a response hauled me up by the back of my harness and dropped me over the edge. Which was probably for the best.

I wasn't super into the free-falling part, but the swinging kicked ass.

Then we took pictures with birds. I feel compelled to post this picture merely for it's intrinsic unflatteringness. I don't know how you could possibly look at it and not be immediately drawn to the gut and crotchal center of the picture. It's like the birds don't even exist. It's a black hole of gut and crotch and stiff posing and black socks with shorts and helmets.

We capped off the adventure tour with a zipline into a cenote. Because I'm not a pansy I did it twice even though I could think of nothing but dead bodies and lake monsters as I splashed into the water.

Jason doesn't get that this is what I see in my head every time I enter a natural body of water.

We could only get WiFi on the balcony of our room at the resort. Luckily it was a gorgeous, comfortable balcony.

Friday we took a ferry to the island across the water from us, Isla Mujeres. From there we drove around the island in a rented golf cart that allowed us to do more gratuitous couple posing and nature photography. I tried my best not to worry about how they would identify our bodies after the violent golf cart wreck we were bound to die in at any moment.

That, my dears, is the long and the short of it. Here’s to another 10 years of wedded bliss! I think I might need a trip to paradise every two years instead of 10 from now on…

That’s right, this blog hasn’t yet been abandoned to decay and be picked clean by scavengers until it’s nothing but a pile of bleached bones. I was gone a few weeks, but that was a just a vacation. No need to worry; as I’m sure you were.

How will I ever get through life without the overshare and occasional real estate tidbit that is Real Estate Tangent? I don’t even know what seemingly innocuous thing is making Elizabeth’s head explode today or what embarrassing situation she’s gotten herself into in the last 10 minutes. My life feels so empty.

It’s alright, my dear readers. I made it through the holidays and the big 10 year anniversary vacation to Cancun and I’m here again to entertain you and humiliate myself (Did I tell you about the time right before Christmas when I was on cold meds and showing property, neglected to lock the bathroom door and my buyers walked in on me peeing? No? Well that’s the whole story. But with more horror on both my part and I would imagine, that of the lovely couple who just wanted to see whether the downstairs lavatory had a shower, and not the color of my underwear.).

Well, I’m sort of here. I have to confess, after a full week in Mexico at a child-free all-inclusive resort I’m having a bit of culture shock back at home. I keep turning toward my middle son across the room and gesturing for another cocktail, and feeling confused and disappointed when a Pina Colada doesn’t quickly materialize. How am I supposed to live again in a world where drinking is only appropriate after 5pm and I’m the one expected to do things like pick my own towels up off the floor and make dinner when I’ve spent the last week in paradise?

So yeah. My brain is still a bit fuzzy with the unfairness and tragedy of it all. But don’t you worry, I’ll get through it all. To help facilitate my transition back into the cold cruel world, I just ate half a box of Triscuits with hummus, port wine cheese and salami for lunch and I’m finishing it off with a Reese’s peanut butter cup (ok, 2). And you’re getting vacation photos as my inaugural post.

I was taking this picture of Jason in his favorite place in the resort when a nice couple came up and asked if I wanted to get in the picture also.

And because I'm a wuss and didn't want to get into the cold pool, I climbed across to get in and the guy graciously took this flattering picture. I'm just glad he didn't get one where I was doing the splits or when I'm pretty sure my right boob had fallen out.

This is the largest temple at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Izta. Jason was in architecture-geek heaven.

This is an arena where the Mayans used to play some soccer/basketball hybrid that ended in the bloody sacrifice of the losing captain. Or the winning one. The archeologists aren't sure on that one. Suffice it to say being a professional athlete in Chichen Itza wasn't the awesome hooker and blow adventure it is in the present day US.

When we walked around the corner of this giant snake sculpture ruin thing two huge iguanas totally got into a fight and chased each other around a bunch. I'm pretty sure they're on the tour guide payroll.

Gratuitous posing.

Apparently in 2005 some lady fell off the top of this thing and died, so tourists are no longer allowed to climb it. I hope they put on her tombstone, "The dumbass who ruined it for everyone else."

Excessively up-the-nose shot.

This is the Sacred Cenote of Chichen Itza. Apparently it's a giant sinkhole with water at the bottom. It was dregged in the early 1900s and they found a bunch of human remains at the bottom. The Mayans used to throw people off that platform into the water below as a sacrifice. Because deep murky wells aren't creepy enough without that mental picture.

The Mayans were kind of dicks, right?

This was another cenote we stopped by on our way home from Chichen Itza. It had a very small opening up top and then stairs that went down into the dark cave with the water underneath. We walked down, but didn't swim like lots of people were down there. Mostly because of the dead people and underground river monsters I was sure were in the water, but also because I was fairly certain the stalactites were going to break off and impale us.

I was going to post all of the pictures today, but there are a ridiculous amount of them. And each with a story, natch. Come back Wednesday for the zipline, the bungee swing, the beach and several unflattering pictures of the Newlins in crotchally confining harnesses.

I’m 33 and started my ballet training at 32.

My turnout is more of a ‘turn-in’.

I can never remember the position my head is supposed to be in so I’m often looking out at the mirror while everyone else in class is looking demurely toward their hand on the bar.

Doing rond de jambes with the arm feels like rubbing my belly while patting my head and it probably looks pretty similar.

My ballet teacher regularly tells me I have ‘desk job posture’.

I don’t have the ability to follow the weight-loss advice handed down to me by one of the other ballerinas at my studio, “When you’re sitting on the couch and you’re hungry, instead of eating just do two minutes of crunches.”

I almost never have time to take more than one ballet class a week. My teacher says if I really want to get better I should be there 3-4 times a week.

Sometimes when I’m working really hard at having the perfect position and holding every part of my body in exactly the right way during the adagio, I glance into the wall of mirrors and realize the look on my face is the same as the one on my nephew, Colby’s, face when he’s taking a crap.

I will absolutely, undoubtedly, without even the remotest possibility, never be a professional ballet dancer.

None of that means that the very perfect Christmas present I could get from my husband wouldn’t be an awesome, over-priced, utterly impractical, adult tutu:

He just knows me that well. I am going to dance the shit out of that thing in my next class.

Here’s hoping you got the perfect, impractical, dream gift for Christmas, too!